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AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN 


AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN 

PENCIL  PORTRAITS  FROM 
COLLEGE  LIFE 


BY 

J.    M.    BARRIE 

AUTHOR  OF 

**THE   LITTLE   MINISTER,"  "A   WINDOW   IN   THRUMS,"  "WHEN   A   MAN'S 

SINGLE,"  "AULD  light  IDYLLS,"  ETC. 


NEW  YORK 
LOVELL,  CORYELL   &    COMPANY 

5  AND  7  East  Sixteenth  Street 


V^^" 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

I.  Lord  Rosebery, 7 

II.  Professor  Masson, 19 

III.  Professor  Blackie, 31 

IV.  Professor  Calderwood,       .       .       .       .41 
V.  Professor  Tait, 53 

VI.  Professor  Fraser, 67 

VII.  Professor  Chrystal, 77 

VIII.  Professor  Sellar, 91 

IX.  Mr.  Joseph  Thomson, 105 

X.  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,     .       .       .       .115 

XL  Rev.  Walter  C.  Smith,  D.D.,      .       .       .129 


LORD  ROSEBERY. 


>1 :  : 


e   «-    •      •• 


•  «  ••  •  • 


LORD  ROSEBERY. 

The  first  time  I  ever  saw  Lord  Ecsebery  was 
in  Edinburgh  when  I  was  a  student,  and  I  flung 
a  clod  of  earth  at  him.  He  was  a  peer;  those 
were  my  politics. 

I  missed  him,  and  I  have  heard  a  good  many 
journalists  say  since  then  that  he  is  a  difiicult 
man  to  hit.  One  who  began  by  liking  him  and 
is  now  scornful,  which  is  just  the  reverse  proc- 
ess from  mine,  told  me  the  reason  why.  He 
had  some  brochures  to  write  on  the  Liberal 
leaders,  and  got  on  nicely  till  he  reached  Lord 
Rosebery,  where  he  stuck.  In  vain  he  walked 
round  his  lordship,  looking  for  an  opening. 
The  man  was  naturally  indignant;  he  is  the 
father  of  a  family. 

Lord  E-osebery  is  forty-one  years  of  age,  and 
has  missed  many  opportunities  of  becoming  the 
bosom   friend   of   Lord   Randolph   ChurchilL 


«    Q    e   c   •«   o      * 


10  .    iliV^  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

They  were  at  Eton  together  and  at  Oxford,  and 
have  met  since.  As  a  boy,  the  Liberal  played 
at  horses,  and  the  Tory  at  running  off  with 
other  boys'  caps.  Lord  Randolph  was  the  more 
distinguished  at  the  university.  One  day  a 
proctor  ran  him  down  in  the  streets  smoking  in 
his  cap  and  gown.  The  undergraduate  re- 
marked on  the  changeability  of  the  weather, 
but  the  proctor,  gasping  at  such  bravado,  de- 
manded his  name  and  college.  Lord  Randolph 
failed  to  turn  up  next  day  at  St.  Edmund  Hall 
to  be  lectured,  but  strolled  to  the  proctor's 
house  about  dinner-time.  "  Does  a  fellow,  name 
of  Moore,  live  here^ "  he  asked.  The  footman 
contrived  not  to  faint.  "He  do,"  he  replied, 
severely;  "but  he  are  at  dinner."  "Ah!  take 
him  in  my  card,"  said  the  unabashed  caller. 
The  Merton  books  tell  that  for  this  the  noble 
lord  was  fined  ten  pounds. 

There  was  a  time  when  Lord  Rosebery  would 
have  reformed  the  House  of  Lords  to  a  site 
nearer  Newmarket.  As  politics  took  a  firmer 
grip  of  him,  it  was  Newmarket  that  seemed  a 
long  way  off.     One  day  at  Edinburgh  he  real- 


LORD  ROSEBERY.  11 

ized  the  disadvantage  of  owning  swift  horses. 
His  brougham  had  met  him  at  Waverley  Sta- 
tion to  take  him  to  Dalmeny.  Lord  Rosebery 
opened  the  door  of  the  carriage  to  put  in  some 
papers,  and  then  turned  away.  The  coachman, 
too  well  bred  to  look  round,  heard  the  door 
shut,  and,  thinking  that  his  master  was  inside, 
set  off  at  once.  Pursuit  was  attempted,  but 
what  was  there  in  Edinburgh  streets  to  make 
up  on  those  horses?  The  coachman  drove  seven 
miles,  until  he  reached  a  point  in  the  Dalmeny 
parks  where  it  was  his  lordship's  custom  to 
alight  and  open  a  gate.  Here  the  brougham 
stood  for  some  minutes,  awaiting  Lord  Rose- 
bery's  convenience.  At  last  the  coachman  be- 
came uneasy  and  dismounted.  His  brain  reeled 
when  he  saw  an  empty  brougham.  He  could 
have  sworn  to  seeing  his  lordship  enter.  There 
were  his  papers.  What  had  happened?  With 
a  quaking  hand  the  horses  were  turned,  and, 
driving  back,  the  coachman  looked  fearfully 
along  the  sides  of  the  road.  He  met  Lord  Rose- 
bery travelling  in  great  good  humor  by  the 
luggage  omnibus. 


12  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

Whatever  is  to  be  Lord  Rosebery's  future, 
he  has  reached  that  stage  in  a  statesman's  career 
when  his  opponents  cease  to  question  his  ca- 
pacity. His  speeches  showed  him  long  ago  a 
man  of  brilliant  parts.  His  tenure  of  the  For- 
eign Office  proved  him  heavy  metal.  Were  the 
Gladstonians  to  return  to  power,  the  other 
Cabinet  posts  might  go  anywhere,  but  the  For- 
eign Secretary  is  arranged  for.  Where  his  pred- 
ecessors had  clouded  their  meaning  in  words 
till  it  was  as  wrapped  up  as  a  Mussulman's 
head,  Lord  Rosebery's  were  the  straightfor- 
ward despatches  of  a  man  with  his  mind  made 
up.  German  inflaence  was  spoken  of;  Count 
Herbert  Bismarck  had  been  seen  shooting  Lord 
E-osebery's  partridges.  This  was  the  evidence: 
there  has  never  been  any  other,  except  that 
German  methods  commended  themselves  to  the 
minister  rather  than  those  of  France.  His  rela- 
tions with  the  French  government  were  cor- 
dial. "  The  talk  of  Bismarck's  shadow  behind 
Rosebery,"  a  great  French  politician  said  lately, 
"  I  put  aside  with  a  smile ;  but  how  about  the 
Jews  ? "    Probably  few  persons  realize  what  a 


LORD  ROSEBERY.  13 

power  the  Jews  are  in  Euro]3e,  and  in  Lord 
Rosebery's  position  he  is  a  strong  man  if  he 
holds  his  own  with  them.  Any  fears  on  that 
ground  have,  I  should  say,  been  laid  by  his 
record  at  the  Foreign  Office. 

Lord  Rosebery  had  once  a  conversation  with 
Prince  Bismarck,  to  which,  owing  to  some  over- 
sight, the  Paris  correspondent  of  the  Times 
was  not  invited,  M.  Blowitz  only  smiled  good- 
naturedly,  and  of  course  his  report  of  the  pro- 
ceedings appeared  all  the  same.  Some  time 
afterward  Lord  Rosebery  was  introduced  to 
this  remarkable  man,  who,  as  is  well  known, 
carries  Cabinet  appointments  in  his  pocket, 
and  complimented  him  on  his  report.  "  Ah,  it 
was  all  right,  was  it? "  asked  Blowitz,  beaming. 
Lord  Rosebery  explained  that  any  fault  it  had 
was  that  it  was  all  wrong.  "  Then  if  Bismarck 
did  not  say  that  to  you,"  said  Blowitz,  regally, 
*'  I  know  he  intended  to  say  it." 

The  "  Uncrowned  King  of  Scotland  "  is  a  title 
that  has  been  made  for  Lord  Rosebery,  whose 
country  has  had  faith  in  him  from  the  begin- 
ning.   Mr.  Gladstone  is  the  only  other  man 


14  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

who  can  make  so  many  Scotsmen  take  politics 
as  if  it  were  the  Highland  Fling.  Once  when 
Lord  Kosebery  was  liring  an  Edinburgh  audi- 
ence to  the  delirium  point,  an  old  man  in  the 
hall  shouted  out,  "  I  diuna  hear  a  word  he  says, 
but  it's  grand,  it's  grand!"  During  the  first 
Midlothian  campaign  Mr.  Gladstone  and  Lord 
Rosebery  were  the  father  and  son  of  the  Scot- 
tish people.  Lord  Rosebery  rode  into  fame  on 
the  top  of  that  wave,  and  he  has  kept  his  place 
in  the  hearts  of  the  people,  and  in  oleographs 
on  their  walls,  ever  since.  In  all  Scottish  mat- 
ters he  has  the  enthusiasm  of  a  Burns  dinner, 
and  his  humor  enables  him  to  pay  compliments. 
When  he  says  agreeable  things  to  Scotsmen 
about  their  country,  there  is  a  twinkle  in  his 
eye  and  in  theirs  to  which  English  scribes  can- 
not give  a  meaning.  He  has  unveiled  so  many 
Burns  statues  that  an  American  lecturess  ex- 
plains; "Curious  thing,  but  I  feel  somehow  I 
am  connected  with  Lord  Rosebery.  I  go  to  a 
place  and  deliver  a  lecture  on  Burns ;  they  col- 
lect subscriptions  for  a  statue,  and  he  unveils 
it."    Such  is  the  delight  of  the  Scottish  stu- 


LORD  ROSEBERY.  15 

dents  in  Lord  Rosebery  tliat  he  may  be  said  to 
bave  made  tbe  triumphal  tour  of  the  northern 
universities  as  their  lord-rector;  he  lost  the 
post  in  Glasgow  lately  through  a  quibble,  but 
had  the  honor  with  the  votes.  His  address  to 
the  Edinburgh  undergraduates  on  "  Patriotism  " 
was  the  best  thing  he  ever  did  outside  politics, 
and  made  the  students  his  for  life.  Some  of 
them  had  smuggled  into  the  hall  a  chair  with 
"Gaelic  chair"  placarded  on  it,  and  the  lord- 
rector  unwittingly  played  into  their  hands. 
In  a  noble  peroration  he  exhorted  his  hearers 
to  high  aims  in  life.  "  Raise  your  country,"  he 
exclaimed  [cheers] ;  "  raise  yourselves  [renewed 
cheering];  raise  your  university  [thunders  of 
applause]."  From  the  back  of  the  hall  came  a 
solemn  voice,  "  Raise  the  chair!  "  Up  went  the 
Gaelic  chair. 

Even  Lord  Rosebery's  views  on  imperial  fed- 
eration can  become  a  compliment  to  Scotland. 
Having  been  all  over  the  world  himself,  and 
felt  how  he  grew  on  his  travels,  Lord  Rose- 
bery  maintains  that  every  British  statesman 
should  visit  India  and  the  colonies.    He  said 


16  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

that  first  at  a  semi-public  dinner  in  the  conn- 
try — and  here  I  may  mention  that  on  such  occa- 
sions he  has  begun  his  speeches  less  frequently 
than  any  other  prominent  politician  with  a 
statement  that  others  could  be  got  to  discharge 
the  duty  better;  in  other  words,  he  has  several 
times  omitted  this  introduction.  On  his  return 
to  London  he  was  told  that  his  colleagues  in 
the  Administration  had  been  seeing  how  his 
scheme  would  work  out.  "  We  found  that  if 
your  rule  were  enforced,  the  Cabinet  would  con- 
sist of  yourself  and  Childers."  "  This  would  be 
an  ideal  cabinet,"  Lord  Rosebery  subsequently 
remarked  in  Edinburgh,  "  for  it  would  be  en- 
tirely Scottish,"  Mr.  Childers  being  member 
for  a  Scottish  constituency. 

The  present  unhappy  division  of  the  Liberal 
party  has  made  enemies  of  friends  for  no  lead- 
ing man  so  little  as  for  Lord  Rosebery.  There 
are  forces  working  against  him,  no  doubt,  in 
comparatively  high  places,  but  the  Unionists 
have  kept  their  respect  for  him.  His  views 
may  be  wrong,  but  he  is  about  the  only  Liberal 
leader,  with  the  noble  exception  of  Lord  Hart- 


LORD  ROSEBERY.  17 

ington,  of  whom  troublous  times  have  not  rasped 
the  temper.  Though  a  great  reader,  he  is  not 
a  literary  man  like  Mr.  Morley,  who  would,  how- 
ever, be  making  phrases  where  Lord  Rosebery 
would  make  laws.  Sir  William  Harcourt  has 
been  spoken  of  as  a  possible  prime  minister, 
but  surely  it  will  never  come  to  that.  If  Mr. 
Gladstone's  successor  is  chosen  from  those  who 
have  followed  him  on  the  home-rule  question, 
he  probably  was  not  rash  in  himself  naming 
Lord  Eosebery. 

Lord  Rosebery  could  not  now  step  up  with- 
out stepping  into  the  premiership.  His  humor, 
which  is  his  most  obvious  faculty,  has  been  a 
prop  to  him  many  a  time  ere  now,  but,  if  I  Avas 
his  adviser,  I  should  tell  him  that  it  has  served 
its  purpose.  There  are  a  great  many  excellent 
people  who  shake  their  heads  over  it  in  a  man 
who  has  become  a  power  in  the  land.  "  Let  us 
be  grave,"  said  Dr.  Johnson  once  to  a  merry 
companion,  ^*  for  here  comes  a  fool."  In  an  un- 
known novel  there  is  a  character  who  says  of 
himself  that  "  he  is  not  stupid  enough  ever  to 
be  a  great  man."    I  happen  to  know  that  this 


18  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

reflection  was  evolved  by  the  author  out  of 
thinking  over  Lord  Kosebery.  It  is  not  easy 
for  a  bright  man  to  be  heavy,  and  Lord  Rose- 
bery's  humor  is  so  spontaneous  that  if  a  joke  is 
made  in  their  company  he  has  always  finished 
laughing  before  Lord  Hartington  begins.  Per- 
haps when  Lord  Rosebery  is  on  the  point  of 
letting  his  humor  run  off  with  him  in  a  public 
speech,  he  could  recover  his  solemnity  by  think- 
ing of  the  Examiner, 


PROFESSOR  MASSON. 


11. 

PROFESSOR  MASSON. 

Though  a  man  might,  to  my  mind,  be  better 
employed  than  in  going  to  college,  it  is  his  own 
fault  if  he  does  not  strike  on  some  one  there 
who  sends  his  life  off  at  a  new  angle.  If,  as  I 
take  it,  the  glory  of  a  professor  is  to  give  elas- 
tic minds  their  proper  bent,  Masson  is  a  name 
his  country  will  retain  a  grip  of.  There  are 
men  who  are  good  to  think  of,  and  as  a  rule  we 
only  know  them  from  their  books.  Something 
of  our  pride  in  life  would  go  with  their  fall. 
To  have  one  such  professor  at  a  time  is  the 
most  a  university  can  hope  of  human  nature ;  so 
Edinburgh  need  not  expect  another  just  yet. 
These,  of  course,  are  only  to  be  taken  as  the 
reminiscences  of  a  student.  I  seem  to  remem- 
ber everything  Masson  said,  and  the  way  he 
said  it. 

Having,  immediately  before  taken  lodgings  in 


22  AI{  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

a  crow's  nest,  my  first  sight  of  Masson  was 
specially  impressive.  It  was  the  opening  of 
the  session,  when  fees  were  paid,  and  a  whis- 
per ran  ronnd  the  quadrangle  that  Masson  had 
set  off  home  with  three  hundred  one-pound 
notes  stuffed  into  his  trouser  pockets.  There 
was  a  solemn  swell  of  awestruck  students  to 
the  gates,  and  some  of  us  could  not  help  follow- 
ing him.  He  took  his  pockets  coolly.  When 
he  stopped  it  was  at  a  second-hand  bookstall, 
where  he  rummaged  for  a  long  time.  Even- 
tually he  pounced  upon  a  dusty,  draggled  little 
volume,  and  went  off  proudly  with  it  beneath 
his  arm.  He  seemed  to  look  suspiciously  at 
strangers  now,  but  it  was  not  tlie  money  but 
the  book  he  was  keeping  guard  over.  His 
pockets,  however,  were  unmistakably  bulging 
out.    I  resolved  to  go  in  for  literature. 

Masson,  however,  always  comes  to  my  mem- 
ory first  knocking  nails  into  his  desk  or  trying 
to  tear  the  gas-bracket  from  its  socket.  He 
said  that  the  Danes  scattered  over  England, 
taking  such  a  hold  as  a  nail  takes  when  it  is 
driven  into  wood.    For  the  moment  he  saw  his 


PROFESSOR  MASSOW.  23 

desk  turned  into  England;  lie  whirled  an  in- 
visible hammer  in  the  air,  and  down  it  came  on 
the  desk  with  a  crash.  No  one  who  has  sat 
under  Masson  can  forget  how  the  Danes  nailed 
themselves  upon  England.  His  desk  is  thick 
with  their  tombstones.  It  was  when  his  mind 
groped  for  an  image  that  he  clutched  the 
bracket.  He  seemed  to  tear  his  good  things 
out  of  it.  Silence  overcame  the  class.  Some 
were  fascinated  by  the  man;  others  trembled 
for  the  bracket.  It  shook,  groaned,  and  yielded. 
Masson  said  another  of  the  things  that  made 
his  lectures  literature;  the  crisis  was  passed; 
and  everybody  breathed  again. 

He  masters  a  subject  by  letting  it  master 
him ;  for  though  his  critical  reputation  is  built 
on  honesty,  it  is  his  enthusiasm  that  makes  his 
work  warm  with  life.  Sometimes  he  entered 
the  class-room  so  full  of  what  he  had  to  say  that 
he  began  before  he  reached  his  desk.  If  he 
was  in  the  middle  of  a  peroration  when  the  bell 
rang,  even  the  back  benches  forgot  to  empty. 
There  were  the  inevitable  students  to  whom 
literature  is  a  trial,  and  sometimes  they  call  at- 


24  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

tention  to  their  sufferings  by  a  scraping  of  the 
feet.  Then  the  professor  tried  to  fix  his  eye- 
glass on  them,  and  when  it  worked  properly 
they  were  transfixed.  As  a  rule,  however,  it 
required  so  many  adjustments  that  by  the  time 
his  QjQ  took  hold  of  it  he  had  remembered  that 
students  were  made  so,  and  his  indignation 
went.  Then,  with  the  light  in  his  eye  that 
some  photograi)her  ought  to  catch,  he  would 
hope  that  his  lecture  was  not  disturbing  their 
conversation.  It  was  characteristic  of  his  pas- 
sion for  being  just  that,  when  he  had  criticised 
some  writer  severely  he  would  remember  that 
the  back  benches  could  not  understand  that 
criticism  and  admiration  might  go  together, 
unless  they  were  told  so  again. 

The  test  of  a  sensitive  man  is  that  he  is  care- 
ful of  wounding  the  feelings  of  others.  Once, 
I  remember,  a  student  was  reading  a  passage 
aloud,  assuming  at  the  same  time  such  an  atti- 
tude that  the  professor  could  not  help  re- 
marking that  he  looked  like  a  teapot.  It  was 
exactly  what  he  did  look  like,  and  the  class 
applauded.    But   next   moment    Masson   had 


PROFESSOR  MASSOm  ^5 

apologized  for  being  personal  Such  reminis- 
cences are  what  make  the  old  literature  class- 
room to  thousands  of  graduates  a  delight  to 
think  of. 

When  the  news  of  Carlyle's  death  reached 
the  room,  Masson  could  not  go  on  with  his  lect- 
ure. Every  one  knows  what  Carlyle  has  said 
of  him ;  and  no  one  who  has  heard  it  will  ever 
forget  what  he  has  said  of  Carlyle.  Here  were 
two  men  who  understood  each  other.  One  of 
the  Carlylean  pictures  one  loves  to  dwell  on 
shows  them  smoking  together,  with  nothing 
breaking  the  pauses  but  Mrs.  Carlyle's  needles. 
Carlyle  told  Masson  how  he  gave  up  smoking 
and  then  took  to  it  again.  He  had  walked 
from  Dumfriesshire  to  Edinburgh  to  consult  a 
doctor  about  his  health,  and  was  advised  to 
lose  his  pipe.  He  smoked  no  more,  but  his 
health  did  not  improve,  and  then  one  day  he 
walked  in  a  wood.  At  the  foot  of  a  tree  lay  a 
pipe,  a  tobacco  pouch,  a  match-box.  He  saw 
clearly  that  this  was  a  case  of  Providential 
interference,  and  from  that  moment  he  smoked 
again.    There  the  professor's  story  stops.    I 


26  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

have  no  doubt,  though,  that  he  nodded  his 
head  when  Carlyle  explained  what  the  pipe 
and  tobacco  were  doing  there.  Masson's  "  Mil- 
ton "  is,  of  course,  his  great  work,  but  for  sym- 
pathetic analysis  I  know  nothing  to  surpass 
his  "  Chatterton."  Lecturing  on  Chatterton  one 
day,  he  remarked,  with  a  slight  hesitation,  that 
had  the  poet  mixed  a  little  more  in  company 
and — and  smoked,  his  morbidness  would  not 
have  poisoned  him.  That  turned  my  thoughts 
to  smoking,  because  I  meant  to  be  a  Chatter- 
ton, but  greater.  Since  then  the  professor  has 
warned  me  against  smoking  too  much.  He 
was  smoking  at  the  time. 

This  is  no  place  to  follow  Masson's  career, 
nor  to  discuss  his  work.  To  reach  his  position 
one  ought  to  know  his  definition  of  a  man  of 
letters.  It  is  curious,  and,  like  most  of  his  de- 
partures from  the  generally  accepted,  sticks  to 
the  memory.  By  a  man  of  letters  he  does  not 
mean  the  poet,  for  instance,  who  is  all  soul,  so 
much  as  the  strong-brained  writer  whose  guar- 
dian angel  is  a  fine  sanity.  He  used  to  mention 
John   Skelton,  the   Wolsey  satirist,  and  Sir 


PROFESSOR  MASJSOJT.  27 

David  Lindsay,  as  typical  men  of  letters  from 
this  point  of  view,  and  it  is  as  a  man  of  letters 
of  that  class  that  Masson  is  best  considered. 
In  an  age  of  many  whipper-snappers  in  criticism, 
he  is  something  of  a  Gulliver. 

The  students  in  that  class  liked  to  see  their 
professor  as  well  as  hear  him.  I  let  my  hair 
grow  long  because  it  only  annoyed  other  peo- 
ple, and  one  day  there  was  dropped  into  my 
hand  a  note  containing  sixpence  and  the  words: 
"  The  students  sitting  behind  you  present  their 
compliments,  and  beg  that  you  will  get  your 
hair  cut  with  the  enclosed,  as  it  interferes  with 
their  view  of  the  professor." 

Masson,  when  he  edited  Macmillan^s^  had 
all  the  best  men  round  him.  His  talk  of  Thack- 
eray is  specially  interesting,  but  he  always  holds 
that  in  conversation  Douglas  Jerrold  was  unap- 
proachable. Jerrold  told  him  a  good  story  of 
his  seafaring  days.  His  ship  was  lying  off 
Gibraltar,  and  for  some  hours  Jerrold,  though 
only  a  midshipman,  was  left  in  charge.  Some 
of  the  sailors  begged  to  get  ashore,  and  he  let 
them,  on  the  promise  that  they  would  bring 


28  AIT  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

him  back  some  oranges.  One  of  them  disap- 
pearedj  and  the  midshipman  suffered  for  it. 
More  than  twenty  years  afterward  Jerrold 
was  looking  in  at  a  window  in  the  Strand  when 
he  seemed  to  know  the  face  of  a  weatherbeaten 
man  who  was  doing  the  same  thing.  Suddenly 
he  remembered,  and  put  his  hand  on  the  other's 
shoulder.  "  My  man,"  he  said,  ''  you  have  been 
a  long  time  with  those  oranges!"  The  sailor 
recognized  him,  turned  white,  and  took  to  his 
heels.  There  is,  too,  the  story  of  how  Dickens 
and  Jerrold  made  up  their  quarrel  at  the  Gar- 
rick  Club.  It  was  the  occasion  on  which  Mas- 
son  first  met  the  author  of  "  Pickwick."  Dick- 
ens and  Jerrold  had  not  spoken  for  a  year,  and 
they  both  happened  to  have  friends  at  dinner 
in  the  strangers'  room,  Masson  being  Jerrold's 
guest.  The  two  hosts  sat  back  to  back,  but 
did  not  address  each  other,  though  the  conver- 
sation was  general.  At  last  Jerrold  could  stand 
it  no  longer.  Turning,  he  exclaimed,  "  Charley, 
my  boy,  how  are  you?"  Dickens  wheeled 
round  and  grasped  his  hand. 
Many  persons  must  have  noticed  that,  in  ap- 


PROFESSOR  MASSOm  29 

pearance,  Masson  is  becoming  more  and  more 
like  Carlyle  every  year.  How  would  you  ac- 
count for  it?  It  is  a  thing  his  old  students 
often  discuss  when  they  meet,  especially  those 
of  them  who,  when  at  college,  made  up  their 
minds  to  dedicate  their  first  book  to  him.  The 
reason  they  seldom  do  it  is  because  the  book 
does  not  seem  good  enough. 


PROFESSOR  JOHN  STUART  BLACKIE, 


III. 

PROFESSOR  JOHN  STUART  BLACKIE. 

Lately  7  was  told  that  Blackie — one  does 
not  say  Mr.  Cromwell — is  no  longer  professor 
of  Greek  in  Edinburgh  University.  What 
nonsense  some  people  talk !  As  if  Blackie  were 
not  part  of  the  building!  In  his  class  one  day 
he  spoke  touchingly  of  the  time  when  he  would 
have  to  join  Socrates  in  the  Elysian  iiekls.  A 
student  cheered  —  no  one  knows  why.  "It 
won't  be  for  some  time  yet,"  added  John 
Stuart. 

Blackie  takes  his  ease  at  home,  in  a  dressing- 
gown  and  straw  hat.  This  shows  that  his  plaid 
really  does  come  off.  "My  occupation  nowa- 
days," he  said  to  me  recently,  "is  business, 
blethers,  bothers,  beggars,  and  backgammon." 
He  has  also  started  a  profession  of  going  to  pub- 
lic meetings,  and  hurrying  home  to  write  letters 
to  the  newspapers  about  them.    When  the  edi- 


34  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

tor  shakes  the  manuscript,  a  sonnet  falls  out.  I 
think  I  remember  the  professor's  saying  that 
he  had  never  made  fiYQ  shillings  by  his  verses. 
To  my  mind  they  are  worth  more  than  that. 

Though  he  has  explained  them  frequently, 
there  is  still  confusion  about  Blackie's  politics. 
At  Manchester  they  thought  he  was  a  Tory, 
and  invited  him  to  address  them,  on  that  under- 
standing. "I  fancy  I  astonished  them,"  the 
professor  said  to  me.  This  is  quite  possible. 
Then  he  was  mistaken  for  a  Liberal.  The  fact  is 
that  Blackie  is  a  philosopher,  who  follows  the 
golden  mean.  He  sees  this  himself.  A  phil- 
osopher who  follows  the  golden  mean  is  thus  a 
man  who  runs  zig-zag  between  two  extremes. 
You  will  observe  that  he  who  does  this  is  some 
time  before  he  arrives  anywhere. 

The  professor  has  said  that  he  has  the  strong- 
est lungs  in  Scotland.  Of  the  many  compli- 
ments that  might  well  be  paid  him,  not  the  least 
worthy  would  be  this:  that  he  is  as  healthy 
mentally  as  physically.  Mrs.  Norton  begins  a 
novel  with  the  remark  that  one  of  the  finest 
sights  conceivable  is  a  well-preserved  gentleman 


PROFESSOR  JOHN  STUART  BLACKIE.      35 

of  middle  age.  It  will  be  some  time  yet  before 
Blackie  reaches  middle  age,  but  there  must  be 
something  wrong  with  you  if  you  can  look  at 
him  without  feeling  refreshed.  Did  you  ever 
watch  him  marching  along  Princes  Street  on  a 
warm  day,  when  every  other  person  was  broil- 
ing in  the  sun?  His  head  is  well  thrown  back, 
the  stalf ,  grasped  in  the  middle,  Jerks  back  and 
forward  like  a  weaver's  shuttle,  and  the  plaid 
flies  in  the  breeze.  Other  people's  clothes  are 
hanging  limp.  Blackie  carries  his  breeze  with 
him. 

A  year  or  two  ago  Mr.  Gladstone,  when  at 
Dalmeny,  pointed  out  that  he  had  the  advan- 
tage over  Blackie  in  being  of  both  Highland 
and  Lowland  extraction.  The  professor,  how- 
ever, is  as  Scotch  as  the  thistle  or  his  native 
hills,  and  Mr.  Gladstone,  quite  justifiably,  con- 
siders him  the  most  outstanding  of  living 
Scotsmen.  Blackie  is  not  quite  sure  himself. 
Not  long  ago  I  heard  him  read  a  preface  to  a 
life  of  Mr.  Gladstone  that  was  being  printed  at 
Smyrna  in  modern  Greek.  He  told  his  readers 
to  remember  that  Mr.  Gladstone  was  a  great 


36  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

scholar  and  an  upright  statesman.  They  would 
find  it  easy  to  do  this  if  they  first  remembered 
that  he  was  Scottish. 

The  World  included  Blackie  in  its  list  of 
"  Celebrities  at  Home."  It  said  that  the  door 
was  opened  by  a  red-headed  lassie.  That  was 
probably  meant  for  local  color,  and  it  amused 
every  one  who  knew  Mrs.  Blackie.  The  pro- 
fessor is  one  of  the  most  genial  of  men,  and  will 
show  you  to  your  room  himself,  talking  six  lan- 
guages. This  tends  to  make  the  conversation 
one-sided,  but  he  does  not  mind  that.  He  still 
writes  a  good  deal,  spending  several  hours  in 
his  library  daily,  and  his  talk  is  as  brilliant  as 
ever.  His  writing  nowadays  is  less  sustained 
than  it  was,  and  he  prefers  flitting  from  one 
subject  to  another,  to  evolving  a  great  work. 
When  he  dips  his  pen  into  an  ink-pot,  it  at  once 
writes  a  sonnet— so  strong  is  the  force  of  habit. 
Recently  he  wrote  a  page  about  Carlyle  in  a 
little  book  issued  by  the  Edinburgh  students' 
bazaar  committee.  In  this  he  reproved  Carlyle 
for  having  "  bias."  Blackie  wonders  why  peo- 
ple should  have  bias. 


PliOF:E:S80Ii  JOHN  BTXJAllT  BLACKIE.      37 

Some  readers  of  this  may  in  their  student 
days  have  been  invited  to  the  Greek  professor's 
house  to  breakfast,  without  knowing  why  they 
were  selected  from  among  so  many.  It  was  not, 
as  they  are  probably  aware,  because  of  their 
classical  attainments,  for  they  were  too  thought- 
ful to  be  in  the  prize-list ;  nor  was  it  because  of 
the  charm  of  their  manners  or  the  fascination 
of  their  conversation.  When  the  professor 
noticed  any  physical  peculiarity  about  a  stu- 
dent, such  as  a  lisp,  or  a  glass  eye,  or  one  leg 
longer  than  the  other,  or  a  broken  nose,  he  was 
at  once  struck  by  it,  and  asked  him  to  breakfast. 
They  were  very  lively  breakfasts,  the  eggs 
being  served  in  tureens;  but  sometimes  it  was 
a  collection  of  the  maimed  and  crooked,  and 
one  person  at  the  table— not  the  host  himself — 
used  to  tremble  lest,  making  mirrors  of  each 
other,  the  guests  should  see  why  they  were 
invited. 

Sometimes,  instead  of  asking  a  student  to 
breakfast,  Blackie  would  instruct  another  stu- 
dent to  request  his  company  to  tea.  Then  the 
two  students  were  told  to  talk  about  paulo- 


38  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

post  futures  in  the  cool  of  the  evening,  and  to 
read  tlieir  Greek  Testament  and  to  go  to  the 
pantomime.  The  professor  never  tired  of  giv- 
ing his  students  advice  about  the  preservation 
of  their  bodily  health.  He  strongly  recom- 
mended a  cold  bath  at  six  o'clock  every  morn- 
ing. In  winter,  he  remarked  genially,  you  can 
break  the  ice  with  a  hammer.  According  to 
himself,  only  one  enthusiast  seems  to  have 
followed  his  advice,  and  he  died. 

In  Blackie's  class-room  there  used  to  be  a  dem- 
onstration every  time  he  mentioned  the  name 
of  a  distinguished  politician.  Whether  the 
demonstration  took  the  professor  by  surprisej 
or  whether  he  waited  for  it,  will  never  perhaps 
be  known.  But  Blackie  at  least  put  out  the 
gleam  in  his  eye,  and  looked  as  if  he  were 
angry.  "I  will  say  Beaconslield,"  he  would 
exclaim  (cheers  and  hisses).  "  Beaconsfield " 
(uproar).  Then  he  would  stride  forward,  and, 
seizing  the  railing,  announce  his  intention  of 
saying  Beaconslield  until  every  goose  in  the 
room  was  tired  of  cackling.  ("Question.") 
"Beaconsfield."    ("No,  no.")     "Beaconslield." 


PROFESSOR  JOHN  STUART  BLACKIE.      39 

("Hear,  hear,"  and  shouts  of  "Gladstone.") 
" Beaconslield."  ("Three  cheers  for  Dizzy.") 
Eventually  the  class  would  be  dismissed  as — 
(1)  idiots,  (2)  a  bear  garden,  (3)  a  flock  of  sheep, 
(4)  a  pack  of  numskulls,  (5)  hissing  serpents. 
The  professor  would  retire,  apparently  fuming, 
to  his  anteroom,  and  five  minutes  afterward 
he  would  be  playing  himself  down  the  North 
Bridge  on  imaginary  bagpipes.  This  sort  of 
thing  added  a  sauce  to  all  academic  sessions. 
There  was  a  notebook  also,  which  appeared 
year  after  year.  It  contained  the  professor's 
jokes  of  a  former  session,  carefully  classified  by 
an  admiring  student.  It  was  handed  down 
from  one  year's  men  to  the  next;  and  thus,  if 
Blackie  began  to  make  a  joke  about  haggis,  the 
possessor  of  the  book  had  only  swiftly  to  turn 
to  the  H's,  find  what  the  joke  was,  and  send  it 
along  the  class  quicker  than  the  professor  could 
speak  it. 

In  the  old  days  the  Greek  professor  recited  a 
poem  in  honor  of  the  end  of  the  session.  He 
composed  it  himself,  and,  as  known  to  me,  it 
took  the  form  of  a  graduate's  farewell  to  his 


40  AJY  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

alma  mater.  Sometimes  he  would  knock  a 
map  down  as  if  overcome  with  emotion,  and  at 
critical  moments  a  student  in  the  back  benches 
would  accompany  him  on  a  penny  trumpet. 
Now,  I  believe,  the  Hellenic  Club  takes  the 
place  of  the  class-room.  All  the  eminent  per- 
sons in  Edinburgh  attend  its  meetings,  and 
Blackie,  the  Athenian,  is  in  the  chair.  The 
policeman  in  Douglas  Crescent  looks  skeered 
when  you  ask  him  what  takes  place  on  these 
occasions.  It  is  generally  understood  that 
toward  the  end  of  the  meeting  they  agree  to 
read  Greek  next  time. 


PROFESSOR  CALDERWOOD. 


IV. 

PROFESSOR  CALDERWOOD. 

Here  is  a  true  story  that  the  general  reader 
may  jump,  as  it  is  intended  for  Professor  Cal- 
derwood  himself.  Some  years  ago  an  English 
daily  paper  reviewed  a  book  entitled  ''  A  Hand- 
book of  Moral  Philosojphy,"  The  professor 
knows  the  work.  The  "  notice "  was  done  by 
the  junior  reporter,  to  whom  philosophical 
treatises  are  generally  intrusted.  He  dealt 
leniently,  on  the  whole,  with  Professor  Calder- 
wood,  even  giving  him  a  word  of  encourage- 
ment here  and  there.  Still  the  criticism  was 
severe.  The  reviewer  subsequently  went  to 
Edinburgh  University,  and  came  out  144th  in 
the  class  of  moral  philosophy. 

That  student  is  now,  I  believe,  on  friendly 
terms  with  Professor  Calderwood,  but  has  never 
told  him  this  story.  I  fancy  the  professor 
would  like  to  know  his  name.    It  may  perhaps 


44  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

be  reached  in  this  way:  He  was  the  young 
gentleman  who  went  to  his  classes  the  first  day 
in  a  black  coat  and  silk  hat,  and  was  cheered 
round  the  quadrangle  by  a  body  of  admiring 
fellow-students,  who  took  him  for  a  professor. 

Calderwood  contrives  to  get  himself  more  in 
touch  with  the  mass  of  his  students  than  some 
of  his  fellow-professors,  partly  because  he  puts 
a  high  ideal  before  himself,  and  to  some  extent 
because  his  subject  is  one  that  Scottish  stu- 
dents revel  in.  Long  before  they  join  his  class 
they  know  that  they  are  moral  philosophers; 
indeed,  they  are  sometimes  surer  of  it  before 
they  enrol  than  afterward.  Their  essays  be- 
gin in  some  such  fashion  as  this :  "  In  joining 
issue  with  Reid,  I  wish  to  take  no  unfair  advan- 
tage of  my  antagonist;  "  or,  "  Kant  is  sadly  at 

fault  when  he  says  that ^'  or,  "It  is  strange 

that  a  man  of  Locke's  attainments  should  have 

been  blind  to  the  fact "    When  the  professor 

reads  out  these  tit-bits  to  the  class,  his  eyes 
twinkle.  Some  students,  of  course,  are  not  such 
keen  philosophers  as  others.  Does  Professor 
Calderwood  remember  the  one  who  was  never 


peof:e:sisoe  calderwood,  45 

struck  by  anything  in  moral  philosophy  until 
he  learned  by  accident  that  Descartes  lay  in 
bed  till  about  twelve  o'clock  every  morning? 
Then  it  dawned  on  him  that  he,  too,  must  have 
been  a  philosopher  all  his  life  without  knowing 
it.  One  year  a  father  and  son  were  in  the  class. 
The  father  got  so  excited  over  volition  and  the 
line  that  divides  right  from  wrong  that  he 
wrenched  the  desk  before  him  from  its  sockets 
and  hit  it  triumphantly,  meaning  that  he  and 
the  professor  were  at  one.  He  was  generally 
admired  by.  his  fellow-students,  because  he  was 
the  only  one  in  the  class  who  could  cry  out 
"Hear,  hear,"  and  even  "Question,"  without 
blushing.  The  son,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
blase^  and  would  have  been  an  agnostic,  only 
he  could  never  remember  the  name.  Once  a 
week  Calderwood  turns  his  class  into  a  debat- 
ing society,  and  argues  things  out  with  his 
students.  This  field-day  is  a  joy  to  them.  Some 
of  them  spend  the  six  days  previous  in  prepar- 
ing posers.  The  worst  of  the  professor  is  that 
he  never  sees  that  they  are  posers.  What  is 
the  use  of  getting  up  a  question  of  the  most 


46  AJS'  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

subtle  kind,  when  lie  answers  it  riglit  away? 
It  makes  you  sit  down  quite  suddenly.  There 
is  an  occasional  student  who  tries  to  convert 
liberty  of  speech  on  the  discussion  day  into 
license,  and  of  him  the  professor  makes  short 
work.  The  student  means  to  turn  the  laugh 
on  Calderwood,  and  then  Calderwood  takes  ad- 
vantage of  him,  and  the  other  students  laugh 
at  the  wrong  person.  It  is  the  older  students, 
as  a  rule,  who  are  most  violently  agitated 
over  these  philosophical  debates.  One  with  a 
beard  cracks  his  fingers,  after  the  manner  of  a 
child  in  a  village  school  that  knows  who  won 
the  battle  of  Bannockburn,  and  feels  that  he 
must  burst  if  he  does  not  let  it  out  at  once.  A 
bald-headed  man  rises  every  minute  to  put  a 
question,  and  then  sits  down,  looking  stupid. 
He  has  been  trying  so  hard  to  remember  what 
it  is  that  he  has  forgotten.  There  is  a  legend 
of  two  who  quarrelled  over  the  Will  and  fought 
it  out  on  Arthur's  Seat. 

One  year,  however,  a  boy  of  sixteen  or  so, 
with  a  squeaky  voice  and  a  stammer,  was  Cal- 
derwood's  severest  critic.    He  sat  on  the  back 


PROFESSOR  CALDERWOOD.  47 

bench,  and  wliat  he  wanted  to  know  was  some- 
thing about  the  infinite.  Every  discussion  day 
he  took  advantage  of  a  lull  in  the  debate  to 
squeak  out,  "  With  regard  to  the  infinite,"  and 
then  could  never  get  any  further.  No  one  ever 
discovered  what  he  wanted  enlightenment  on 
about  the  infinite.  He  grew  despondent  as  the 
session  wore  on,  bnt  courageously  stuck  to  his 
point.  Probably  he  is  a  soured  man  now.  For 
purposes  of  exposition,  Calderwood  has  a  black- 
board in  his  lecture-room,  on  which  he  chalks 
circles  that  represent  the  feelings  and  the  will, 
with  arrows  shooting  between  them.  In  my 
class  there  was  a  boy,  a  very  little  boy,  who  had 
been  a  dux  at  school  and  was  a  dunce  at  col- 
lege. He  could  not  make  moral  philosophy 
out  at  all,  but  did  his  best.  Here  were  his  com- 
plete notes  for  one  day:  "Edinburgh  Univer- 
sity ;  Class  of  Moral  Philosophy ;  Professor  Cal- 
derwood; Lecture  64;  Jan.  11. 18 —  You  rub  out 
the  arrow,  and  there  is  only  the  circle  left." 

Professor  Calderwood  is  passionately  fond  of 
music,  as  those  who  visit  at  his  house  know. 
He  is  of  opinion  that  there  is  a  great  deal  of 


48  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN 

moral  philosophy  in  "The  Dead  March  in 
Saul."  Once  he  said  something  to  that  effect  in 
his  class,  adding  enthusiastically  that  he  could 
excuse  the  absence  of  a  student  who  had  been 
away  hearing  "The  Dead  March  in  Saul." 
After  that  he  received  a  good  many  letters  from 
students,  worded  in  this  way:  "Mr.  McNaugh- 
ton  (bench  7)  presents  his  compliments  to  Pro- 
fessor Calderwood,  and  begs  to  state  that  his 
absence  from  the  class  yesterday  was  owing  to 
his  being  elsewhere,  hearing  '  The  Dead  March 
in  Saul.' "  "  Dear  Professor  Calderwood:  I  re- 
gret my  absence  from  the  lecture  to-day,  but 
hope  you  will  overlook  it,  as  I  was  unavoid- 
ably detained  at  home,  practising  '  The  Dead 
March  in  Saul.'  Yours  truly,  Peter  Web- 
ster." "Professor  Calderwood:  Dear  Sir, — 
As  I  was  coming  to  the  lecture  to-day,  I  heard 
'  The  Dead  March  in  Saul '  being  played  in  the 
street.  You  will,  I  am  sure,  make  allowance 
for  my  non-attendance  at  the  class,  as  I  was  too 
much  affected  to  come.  It  is  indeed  a  grand 
march.  Yours  faithfully,  John  Kobbie."  "  The 
students  whose  names  are  subjoined  thank  the 


PROFESSOR  CALDERWOOD.  49 

professor  of  moral  philosophy  most  cordially 
for  his  remarks  on  the  elevating  power  of 
music.  They  have  been  encouraged  thereby 
to  start  a  class  for  the  proper  study  of  the  im- 
pressive and  solemn  march  to  which  he  called 
special  attention,  and  hope  he  will  excuse 
them,  should  their  practisings  occasionally  pre- 
vent their  attendance  at  the  Friday  lectures." 
Professor  Calderwood  does  not  lecture  on  "  The 
Dead  March  in  Saul"  now. 

The  class  of  moral  philosophy  is  not  for  the 
few,  but  the  many.  Some  professors  ^o  not 
mind  what  becomes  of  the  nine  students,  so 
long  as  they  can  force  on  every  tenth.  Calder- 
wood, however,  considers  it  his  duty  to  carry 
the  whole  class  along  with  him ;  and  it  is,  as  a 
consequence,  almost  impossible  to  fall  behind. 
The  lectures  are  not  delivered,  in  the  ordinary 
sense,  but  dictated.  Having  explained  the  sub- 
ject of  the  day  with  the  lucidity  that  is  this 
professor's  peculiar  gift,  he  condenses  his  re- 
marks into  a  proposition.  It  is  as  if  a  minis- 
ter ended  his   sermon  with    the  text.     Thus: 

"Proposition  34:  Man  is  born  into  the  world 
4 


50  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

— (You  have  got  that?  See  that  yon  have  all 
got  it.)  Man  is  born  into  the  world  with  a 
capacity — with  a  capacity "  (Anxions  stu- 
dent: "If  you  please,  professor,  where  did  you 
say  man  was  born  into  ? ")    "  Into  the  world,  with 

a  capacity  to  distinguish "     ("  With  a  what, 

sir? ") — "  with  a  capacity  to  distinguish " 

(Student:  "Who  is  born  into  the  world?") 
"Perhaps  I  have  been  reading  too  quickly. 
Man  is  born  into  the  world,  with  a  capacity  to 

distinguish  between — distinguish  between " 

(student  shuts  his  book,  thinking  that  conix)letes 
the  proposition) — "distinguish  between  right 
and  wrong — right — and  wrong.  You  have  all 
got  Proposition  34,  gentlemen?" 

Once  Calderwod  was  questioning  a  student 
about  a  proposition,  to  see  that  he  thorouglily 
understood  it.  "Give  an  illustration,"  sug- 
gested the  professor.  The  student  took  the 
case  of  a  murderer.  "Very  good,"  said  the 
professor.  "  Now  give  me  another  illustration." 
The  student  pondered  for  a  little.  "  Well,"  he 
said  at  length,  "  take  the  case  of  another  mur- 
derer." 


frof:essor  CALDERWOOD.  51 

Professor  Calderwood  has  such  an  excep- 
tional interest  in  his  students  that  he  asks  every 
one  of  them  to  his  house.  This  is  but  one  of 
many  things  that  makes  him  generally  popu- 
lar; he  also  invites  his  ladies'  class  to  meet 
them.  The  lady  whom  you  take  down  to  sup- 
per suggests  Proposition  41  as  a  nice  thing  to 
talk  about,  and  asks  what  you  think  of  the 
metaphysics  of  ethics.  Professor  Calderwood 
sees  the  ladies  into  the  cabs  himself.  It  is  the 
only  thing  I  ever  heard  against  him. 


PROFESSOR  TAIT. 


PROFESSOR  TAIT. 

Just  as  I  opened  my  desk  to  write  enthu- 
siastically of  Taitj  I  remembered  having  recently 
deciphered  a  pencil  note  about  him,  in  my  own 
handwriting,  on  the  cover  of  Masson's  "  Chron- 
ological List,"  which  I  still  keep  by  me.  I 
turned  to  the  note  to  see  if  there  was  life  in  it 
yet.  "  Walls,"  it  says,  "  got  2s.  for  T.  and  T.  at 
Brown's,  16  Walker  Street."  I  don't  recall 
Walls,  but  T.  and  T.  was  short  for  "  Thomson 
and  Tait's  Elements  of  Natural  Philosophy" 
(elements ! ),  better  known  in  my  year  as  the 
"Student's  First  Glimpse  of  Hades."  Evi- 
dently Walls  sold  his  copy,  but  why  did  I  take 
such  note  of  the  address?  I  fear  T.  and  T.  is 
one  of  the  "  Books  Which  Have  Helped  Me." 
This  somewhat  damps  my  ardor. 

When  Tait  was  at  Cambridge,  it  was  flung  in 
the  face  of  the  mathematicians  that  they  never 


56  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

stood  high  in  Scriptural  knowledge.  Tait  and 
another  were  the  two  of  whom  one  must  be  first 
wrangler,  and  they  agreed  privately  to  wipe 
this  stigma  from  mathematics.  They  did  it  by 
taking  year  about  the  prize  which  was  said  to 
hang  out  of  their  reach.  It  is  always  interest- 
ing to  know  of  professors  who  have  done  well 
in  Biblical  knowledge.  All  Scottish  students 
at  the  English  universities  are  not  so  success- 
ful. I  knew  a  Snell  man  who  was  sent  back 
from  the  Oxford  entrance  exam.,  and  he  always 
held  himself  that  the  Biblical  questions  had 
done  it. 

Turner  is  said  by  medicals  to  be  the  finest 
lecturer  in  the  university.  He  will  never  be 
that  so  long  as  Tait  is  in  the  natural  philoso- 
phy chair.  Never,  I  think,  can  there  have  been 
a  more  superb  demonstrator.  I  have  his  burly 
figure  before  me.  The  small  twinkling  eyes 
had  a  fascinating  gleam  in  them;  he  could  con- 
centrate them  until  they  held  the  object  looked 
at ;  when  they  flashed  round  the  room  he  seemed 
to  have  drawn  a  rapier.  I  have  seen  a  man  fall 
back  in  alarm  under  Tait's  eyes,  though  there 


PROFESSOR  TAIT.  57 

were  a  dozen  benches  between  them.  These 
eyes  could  be  merry  as  a  boy's,  though,  as  when 
he  turned  a  tube  of  water  on  students  who 
would  insist  on  crowding  too  near  an  experi- 
ment, for  Tait's  was  the  humor  of  high  spirits. 
I  could  conceive  him  at  marbles  still,  and  feel- 
ing annoyed  at  defeat.  He  could  not  fancy 
anything  much  funnier  than  a  man  missing  his 
chair.  Outside  his  own  subject  he  is  not,  one 
feels,  a  six-footer.  When  Mr.  R.  L.  Stevenson's 
memoir  of  the  late  Mr.  Fleeming  Jenkin  was 
published,  Tait  said  at  great  length  that  he  did 
not  like  it ;  he  would  have  had  the  sketch  by  a 
scientific  man.  But  though  scientists  may  be 
the  only  men  nowadays  who  have  anything  to 
say,  they  are  also  the  only  men  who  can't  say 
it.  Scientific  men  out  of  their  sphere  know  for 
a  fact  that  novels  are  not  true.  So  they  draw 
back  from  novelists  who  write  biography.  Pro- 
fessor Tait  and  Mr.  Stevenson  are  both  men  of 
note,  who  walk  different  ways,  and  when  they 
meet  neither  likes  to  take  the  curbstone.  If 
they  were  tied  together  for  life  in  a  three-legged 
race,  which  would  suffer  the  more? 


68  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

But  if  Tait's  science  weighs  him  to  the  earth, 
he  has  a  genius  for  sticking  to  his  subject,  and 
I  am  lost  in  admiration  every  time  I  bring  back 
his  lectures.  It  comes  as  natural  to  his  old 
students  to  say  when  they  meet,  "  What  a  lec- 
turer Tait  was ! "  as  to  Englishmen  to  joke 
about  the  bagpipes.  It  is  not  possible  to  draw 
a  perfect  circle,  Chrystal  used  to  say,  after 
drawing  a  very  fine  one.  To  the  same  extent 
it  was  not  possible  for  Tait  never  to  fail  in  his 
experiments.  The  atmosphere  would  be  too 
much  for  him  once  in  a  session,  or  there  were 
other  hostile  influences  at  work.  Tait  warned 
us  of  these  before  proceeding  to  experiment, 
but  we  merely  smiled.  We  believed  in  him  as 
though  he  were  a  Bradshaw  announcing  that 
he  would  not  be  held  responsible  for  possible 
errors. 

I  had  forgotten  Lindsay — '*  the  mother  may 
forget  her  child."  As  I  write,  he  has  slipped 
back  into  his  chair  on  the  j^rofessor's  right, 
and  I  could  photograph  him  now  in  his  brown 
suit.  Lindsay  was  the  imperturbable  man  who 
assisted  Tait  in  his  experiments,  and  his  father 


PROFESSOR  TAIT,  69 

held  the  post  before  him.  When  there  were 
many  of  us  together,  we  could  applaud  Lindsay 
with  burlesque  exaggeration,  and  he  treated 
us  good-humoredly,  as  making  something  con- 
siderable between  us.  But  I  once  had  to  face 
Lindsay  alone,  in  quest  of  my  certificate;  and 
suddenly  he  towered  above  me,  as  a  waiter  may 
grow  tall  when  you  find  that  you  have  not 
money  enough  to  pay  the  bill.  He  treated  me 
most  kindly ;  did  not  reply,  of  course,  but  got 
the  certificate,  and  handed  it  to  me  as  a  cashier 
contemptuously  shovels  you  your  pile  of  gold. 
Long  ago  I  pasted  up  a  crack  in  my  window 
with  the  certificate,  but  it  said,  I  remember, 
that  I  had  behaved  respectably — so  far  as  I  had 
come  under  the  eyes  of  the  professor.  Tait 
was  always  an  enthusiast. 

We  have  been  keeping  Lindsay  waiting. 
When  he  had  nothing  special  to  do,  he  sat  in- 
differently in  his  chair,  with  the  face  of  a  pre- 
centor after  the  sermon  has  begun.  But  though 
it  was  not  very  likely  that  Lindsay  would  pay 
much  attention  to  talk  about  such  playthings 
as  the  laws  of  nature,  his  fingers  went  out  in 


60  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN 

the  direction  of  the  professor  when  the  experi- 
ments began.  Then  he  was  not  the  precentor; 
he  was  a  minister  in  one  of  the  pews.  Lindsay 
was  an  inscrutable  man,  and  I  shall  not  dare  to 
say  that  he  even  half- wished  to  see  Tait  fail. 
He  only  looked  on,  ready  for  any  emergency ; 
but  if  the  experiment  would  not  come  off,  He 
was  as  quick  to  go  to  the  professor's  assistance 
as  a  member  of  Parliament  is  to  begin  when  he 
has  caught  the  Speaker's  eye.  Perhaps  Tait 
would  have  none  of  his  aid,  or  pushed  the 
mechanism  for  the  experiment  from  him — an  in- 
timation to  Lindsay  to  carry  it  quickly  to  the 
ante-room.  Do  you  think  Lindsay  read  the  in- 
structions so?  Let  me  tell  you  that  your  mind 
fails  to  seize  hold  of  Lindsay.  He  marched 
the  machine  out  of  Tait's  vicinity  as  a  mother 
may  push  her  erring  boy  away  from  his  father's 
arms,  to  take  him  to  her  heart  as  soon  as  the 
door  is  closed.  Lindsay  took  the  machine  to 
his  seat,  and  laid  it  before  him  on  the  desk, 
with  well-concealed  apathy.  Tait  would  flash 
his  eye  to  the  right  to  see  what  Lindsay  was 
after,  and  there  was  Lindsay  sitting  with  his 


PBOFEJSSOR  TAIT.  61 

arms  folded.  The  professor's  lecture  resumed 
its  way,  and  then  out  went  Lindsay's  hands  to 
the  machine.  Here  he  tried  a  wheel;  again  he 
turned  a  screw ;  in  time  he  had  the  machine 
ready  for  another  trial.  No  one  was  looking 
his  way,  when  suddenly  there  was  a  whizz — 
bang,  bang.  All  eyes  were  turned  upon  Lind- 
say, the  professor's  among  them.  A  cheer 
broke  out  as  we  realized  that  Lindsay  had  done 
the  experiment.  Was  he  flushed  with  triumph  ? 
Not  a  bit  of  it;  he  was  again  sitting  with  his 
arms  folded.  A  Glasgow  merchant  of  modest 
manners,  when  cross-examined  in  a  law  court, 
stated  that  he  had  a  considerable  monetary  in- 
terest in  a  certain  concern.  "  How  much  do  you 
mean  by  a  '  considerable  monetary  interest '  ? " 
demanded  the  contemptuous  barrister  who  was 
cross-examining  him.  "  Oh,"  said  the  witness, 
humbly,  "  a  maiter  o'  a  million  an'  a  half — or, 
say,  twa  million."  That  Glasgow  man  in  the 
witness-box  is  the  only  person  I  can  think  of, 
when  looking  about  me  for  a  parallel  to  Lind- 
say. While  the  professor  eyed  him  and  the 
students  deliriously  beat   the  floor,  Lindsay 


62  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

quietly  gathered  the  meclianism  together  and 
carried  it  to  the  ante-room.  His  head  was  not 
liung  back  nor  his  chest  forward,  like  one  who 
walked  to  music.  In  his  hour  of  triumph  he 
was  still  imperturbable.  I  lie  back  in  my  chair 
to-day,  after  the  lapse  of  years,  and  ask  myself 
again.  How  did  Lindsay  behave  after  he  en- 
tered the  ante-room,  shutting  the  door  behind 
him?  Did  he  give  way?  There  is  no  one  to 
say.  When  he  returned  to  the  class-room  he 
wore  his  familiar  face ;  a  man  to  ponder  over. 

There  is  a  legend  about  the  natural  philoso- 
phy class-room,  the  period  long  antecedent  to 
Tait.  The  professor,  annoyed  by  a  habit  stu- 
dents had  got  into  of  leaving  their  hats  on  his 
desk,  announced  that  the  next  hat  placed  there 
would  be  cut  in  pieces  by  him  in  presence  of 
the  class.  The  warning  had  its  effect,  until  one 
day  when  the  professor  was  called  for  a  few 
minutes  from  the  room.  An  undergraduate,  to 
whom  the  natural  sciences,  unrelieved,  were  a 
monotonous  study,  slipped  into  the  ante-room, 
from  which  he  emerged  with  the  professor's 
hat.    This  he  placed  on  the  desk,  and  then 


PROFESSOR  TAIT.  63 

stole  in  a  panic  to  his  seat.  An  awe  fell  upon 
the  class.  The  professor  returned,  but  when 
he  saw  the  hat  he  stopped.  He  showed  no 
anger.  "  Gentlemen,"  he  said,  "  I  told  you  what 
would  happen  if  you  again  disobeyed  my 
orders."  Quite  blandly  he  took  a  pen-knife 
from  his  pocket,  slit  the  hat  into  several  pieces, 
and  flung  them  into  the  sink.  While  the  hat 
was  under  the  knife,  the  students  forgot  to 
demonstrate;  but  as  it  splashed  into  the  sink, 
they  gave  forth  a  true  British  cheer.  The  end. 
Close  to  the  door  of  the  natural  philosophy 
room  is  a  window  that  in  my  memory  will  ever 
be  sacred  to  a  janitor.  The  janitors  of  the  uni- 
versity were  of  varied  interest,  from  the  merry 
one  who  treated  us  as  if  we  were  his  equals,  and 
the  soldier  who  sometimes  looked  as  if  he  would 
like  to  mow  us  down,  to  the  Head  Man  of  All, 
whose  name  I  dare  not  write,  though  I  can 
whisper  it.  The  janitor  at  the  window,  how- 
ever, sat  there  through  the  long  evenings  while 
the  Debating  Society  (of  which  I  was  a  mem- 
ber) looked  after  affairs  of  state  in  an  adjoin- 
ing room.     We  were  the  smallest  society  in 


64  AJSr  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

tlie  university  and  the  longest-Avinded,  and  I 
was  once  nearly  expelled  for  not  paying  my 
subscription.  Our  grand  debate  was,  "Is  the 
policy  of  the  government  worthy  the  conli- 
dence  of  this  society? "  and  we  also  read  about 
six  essays  yearly  on  "  The  Genius  of  Kobert 
Burns  " ;  but  it  was  on  private  business  that  we 
came  out  strongest.  The  question  that  agi- 
tated us  most  was  whether  the  meetings  should 
be  opened  with  prayer,  and  the  men  who 
thought  they  should  would  not  so  much  as 
look  at  the  men  who  thought  they  should  not. 
When  the  janitor  was  told  that  we  had  begun 
our  private  business,  he  returned  to  his  window 
and  slept.  His  great  day  was  when  we  could  not 
form  a  quorum,  which  happened  now  and  then. 
Gregory  was  a  member  of  that  society — what 
has  become  of  Gregory?  He  was  one  of  those 
men  who  professors  say  have  a  brilliant  future 
before  them,  and  who  have  not  since  been  heard 
of.  Morton,  another  member,  was  of  a  differ- 
ent stamp.  He  led  in  the  debate  on  "  Beauty 
of  the  Mind  i\  Beauty  of  the  Body."  His  writh- 
ing contempt  for  the  beauty  that  is  only  skin- 


PROFESSOR  TAIT.  65 

deep  is  not  to  be  forgotten.  How  noble  were 
his  rhapsodies  on  the  beauty  of  the  mind! 
And  when  he  went  to  Calderwood's  to  supper, 
how  quick  he  was  to  pick  out  the  prettiest  girl, 
who  took  ten  per  cent  in  moral  philosophy, 
and  to  sit  beside  her  all  the  evening !  Morton 
had  a  way  of  calling  on  his  friends  the  night 
before  a  degree  examination  to  ask  them  to  put 
him  up  to  as  much  as  would  pull  him  through. 
Tait  used  to  get  greatly  excited  over  the  rec- 
torial elections,  and,  if  he  could  have  disguised 
himself,  would  have  liked,  I  think,  to  join  in 
the  fight  round  the  Brewster  statue.  He  would 
have  bled  for  the  Conservative  cause,  as  his 
utterances  on  university  refoi-m  have  shown. 
The  reformers  have  some  cause  for  thinking 
that  Tait  is  a  greater  man  in  his  class  room  than 
when  he  addresses  the  graduates.  He  has  said 
that  the  less  his  students  know  of  his  subject 
when  they  join  his  class,  the  less,  probably,  they 
will  have  to  unlearn.  Such  views  are  behind 
the  times  that  feed  their  children  on  geograph- 
ical biscuits  in  educational  nurseries  with  astro- 
nomical ceilings  and  historical  wall-papers. 
5 


ROFESSOR  CAMPBELL  FRASER, 


VI. 

PROFESSOR  CAMPBELL  ERASER. 

Not  long  ago  I  was  back  in  the  Old  Univer- 
sity— how  well  I  remember  i^ointing  it  out  as 
the  jail  to  a  stranger,  who  had  asked  me  to 
show. him  round.  I  was  in  one  of  the  library 
ante-rooms,  when  some  one  knocked,  and  I 
looked  up,  to  see  Campbell  Fraser  framed  in 
the  doorway.  I  had  not  looked  on  that  ven- 
erable figure  for  half  a  dozen  years.  I  had  for- 
gotten all  my  metaphysics.  Yet  it  all  came 
back  with  a  rush.  I  was  on  my  feet,  wonder- 
ing if  I  existed  strictly  so  called. 

Calderwood  and  Fraser  had  both  their  fol- 
lowings.  The  moral  philosophers  wore  an  air 
of  certainty,  for  they  knew  that  if  they  stuck 
to  Calderwood  he  would  pull  them  through. 
You  cannot  lose  yourself  in  the  back  garden. 
But  the  metaphysicians  had  their  doubts. 
Fraser  led  them  into  strange  places,  and  said 


70  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

he  would  meet  them  there  again  next  day. 
They  wandered  to  their  lodgings,  and  got  into 
difficulties  with  their  landlady  for  saying  that 
she  was  only  an  aggregate  of  sense  phenomena. 
Eraser  was  rather  a  hazardous  cure  for  weak  in- 
tellects. Young  men  whose  anchor  had  been 
certainty  of  themselves  went  into  that  class 
floating  buoyantly  on  the  sea  of  facts,  and  came 
out  all  adrift — on  the  sea  of  theory — in  an  open 
boat — rudderless — one  oar— the  boat  scuttled. 
How  could  they  think  there  was  any  chance 
for  them,  when  the  professor  was  not  even  sure 
of  himself?  I  see  him  rising  in  a  daze  from  his 
chair  and  putting  his  hands  through  his  hair. 
"  Do  I  exist,"  he  said,  thoughtfully,  "  strictly 
so  called?"  The  students  (if  it  was  the  begin- 
ning of  the  session)  looked  a  little  startled. 
This  was  a  matter  that  had  not  previously  dis- 
turbed them.  Still,  if  the  professor  was  in 
doubt,  there  must  be  something  in  it.  He  be- 
gan to  argue  it  out,  and  an  uncomfortable  si- 
lence held  the  room  in  awe.  If  he  did  not  exist, 
the  chances  were  that  they  did  not  exist  either. 
It  was  thus  a   personal  question.    The   pro- 


PROFEmOR  CAMPBELL  ERASER.  71 

lessor  glanced  round  slowly  for  an  illustration. 
''  Am  I  a  table? "  A  pained  look  travelled  over 
the  class.  Was  it  just  possible  that  they  were 
all  tables?  It  is  no  wonder  that  the  students 
who  do  not  go  to  the  bottom  during  their  first 
month  of  metaphysics  begin  to  give  themselves 
airs  strictly  so  called.  In  the  privacy  of  their 
room  at  the  top  of  the  house,  they  pinch  them- 
selves to  see  if  they  are  still  there. 

He  would,  I  think,  be  a  sorry  creature  who 
did  not  find  something  to  admire  in  Campbell 
Fraser.  Metaphysics  may  not  trouble  you,  as 
it  troubles  him,  but  you  do  not  sit  under  the 
man  without  seeing  his  transparent  honesty 
and  feeling  that  he  is  genuine.  In  appearance 
and  in  habit  of  thought  he  is  an  ideal  philoso- 
pher, and  his  communings  with  himself  have 
lifted  him  to  a  level  of  serenity  that  is  worth 
struggling  for.  Of  all  the  arts  professors  in 
Edinburgh,  he  is  probably  the  most  difficult  to 
understand,  and  students  in  a  hurry  have  called 
his  lectures  childish.  If  so,  it  may  be  all  the 
better  for  them.  For  the  first  half  of  the  hour, 
they  say,  he  tells  you  what  he  is  going  to  do. 


73  AW  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

and  for  the  second  half  lie  revises.  Certainly 
he  is  vastly  explanatory,  but  then  he  is  not  so 
young  as  they  are,  and  so  he  has  his  doubts. 
They  are  so  cock-sure  that  they  wonder  to  see 
him  hesitate.  Often  there  is  a  mist  on  the 
mountain  when  it  Is  all  clear  in  the  valley. 

Fraser's  great  work  is  his  edition  of  Berke- 
ley, a  labor  of  love  that  should  live  after  him. 
He  has  two  Berkeleys,  the  large  one  and  the 
little  one,  and,  to  do  him  justice,  it  was  the  lit- 
tle one  he  advised  us  to  consult.  I  never  read 
the  large  one  myself,  which  is  in  a  number  of 
monster  tomes,  but  I  often  had  a  look  at  it  in 
the  library,  and  I  was  proud  to  think  that  an 
Edinburgh  professor  was  the  editor.  When 
Glasgow  men  came  through  to  talk  of  their 
professors,  we  showed  them  the  big  Berkeley, 
and  after  that  they  were  reasonable.  There 
was  one  man  in  my  year  who  really  began  the 
large  Berkeley,  but  after  a  time  he  was  missing, 
and  it  is  believed  that  some  day  he  will  be 
found  flattened  between  the  pages  of  the  first 
volume. 

The  "  Selections  "  was  the  text-book  we  used 


PROFESSOR  CAMPBELL  FRASER.  73 

in  the  class.  It  is  sufficient  to  prove  that  Ber- 
keley wrote  beautiful  English.  I  am  not  sure 
that  any  one  has  written  such  English  since. 
We  have  our  own  "  stylists,"  but  how  self-con- 
scious they  are  after  Berkeley!  It  is  seven 
years  since  I  opened  my  "  Selections,"  but  I  see 
that  I  was  once  more  of  a  metaphysician  than 
I  have  been  giving  myself  credit  for.  The  book 
is  scribbled  over  with  posers  in  my  handwrit- 
ing about  dualism  and  primaiy  realities.  Some 
of  the  comments  are  in  shorthand,  which  I 
must  at  one  time  have  been  able  to  read,  but 
all  are  equally  unintelligible  now.  Here  is  one 
of  my  puzzlers :  "  Does  B  here  mean  impercipi- 
ent  and  unperceived  subject  or  conscious  and 
percijjient  subject?"  Observe  the  friendly  B. 
I  dare  say  further  on  I  shall  find  myself  refer- 
ring to  the  professor  as  F.  I  wonder  if  I  ever 
discovered  what  B  meant.  I  could  not  now  tell 
what  I  meant,  myself. 

As  many  persons  are  aware,  the  "  Selections  " 
consist  of  Berkeley's  text  with  the  professor's 
notes  thereon.  The  notes  are  explanatory  of 
the  text,  and  the  student  must  find  them  an 


74  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

immense  help.  Here,  for  instance,  is  a  note: 
^'  Phenomenal  or  sense  dependent  existence  can 
be  substantiated  and  caused  only  by  a  self- 
conscious  spirit,  for  otherwise  there  could  be 
no  propositions  about  it  expressive  of  what  is 
conceivable ;  on  the  other  hand,  to  a  ffirm  that 
phenomenal  or  sense  dependent  existence, 
which  alone  we  know,  and  which  alone  is  con- 
ceivable, is,  or  even  represents,  an  inconceivable 
non-phenomenal  or  abstract  existence,  would 
be  to  affirm  a  contradiction  in  terms."  There 
we  have  it. 

As  a  metaphysician  I  was  something  of  a  dis- 
appointment. I  began  well,  standing,  if  I  recol- 
lect aright,  in  the  three  examinations,  first, 
seventeenth,  and  seventy -seventh.  A  man  who 
sat  beside  me — man  was  the  word  we  used — 
gazed  at  me  reverently  when  I  came  out  first, 
and  I  could  see  by  his  eye  that  he  was  not  sure 
whether  I  existed  properly  so  called.  By  the 
second  exam,  his  doubts  had  gone,  and  by  the 
third  he  was  surer  of  me  than  of  himself.  He 
came  out  fifty -seventh,  this  being  the  grand 
triumph  of  his  college  course.    He  was  the 


frof:ejssor  CAMPBELL  FRASER.         75 

same  whose  key  translated  eras  donah er is 
Jicedo  "  To-morrow  you  will  be  presented  with 
a  kid,"  but  who,  thinking  that  a  little  vulgar, 
refined  it  down  to  "  To-morrow  you  will  be  pre- 
sented with  a  small  child." 

In  the  metaphysics  class  I  was  like  the  foun- 
tains in  the  quadrangle,  which  ran  dry  toward 
the  middle  of  the  session.  While  things  were 
still  looking  hopeful  for  me,  I  had  an  invita- 
tion to  breakfast  with  the  professor.  If  the 
fates  had  been  so  propitious  as  to  forward  me 
that  invitation,  it  is  possible  that  I  might  be  a 
metaphysician  to  this  day,  but  I  had  changed 
my  lodgings,  and,  when  I  heard  of  the  affair,  all 
was  over.  The  professor  asked  me  to  stay  be- 
hind one  day  after  the  lecture,  and  told  me  that 
he  had  got  his  note  back  with  "  Left :  no  ad- 
dress "  on  it.  "  However,"  he  said,  "  yon  may 
keep  this,"  presenting  me  with  the  invitation 
for  the  Saturday  previously.  I  mention  this 
to  show  that  even  professors  have  hearts.  That 
letter  is  preserved  with  the  autographs  of 
three  editors,  none  of  which  anybody  can  read. 

There  was  once  a  medical  student  who  came 


76  AN'  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

up  to  my  rooms  early  in  the  session,  and  I 
proved  to  Mm  in  half  an  hour  that  he  did  not 
exist.  He  got  quite  frightened,  and  I  can  still 
see  his  white  face  as  he  sat  staring  at  me  in  the 
gloaming.  This  shows  what  metaphysics  can 
do.  He  has  recovered,  however,  and  is  sheep- 
farming  now,  his  examiners  never  having  asked 
him  the  right  questions. 

The  last  time  Fraser  ever  addressed  me  was 
when  I  was  capped.  He  said,  "  I  congratulate 
you,  Mr.  Smith,"  and  one  of  the  other  pro- 
fessors said,  ''  I  congratulate  you,  Mr.  Fisher." 
My  name  is  neither  Smith  nor  Fisher,  but  no 
doubt  the  thing  was  kindly  meant.  It  was 
then,  however,  that  the  professor  of  metaphy- 
sics had  his  revenge  on  me.  I  had  once  spelt 
Fraser  with  a  "  z." 


PROFESSOR  CHRYSTAL. 


VII. 

PROFESSOR  CHRYSTAL. 

When  Chrystal  came  to  Edinburgh,  he  rooted 
up  the  humors  of  the  class-room  as  a  dentist 
draws  teeth.  Souls  were  sold  for  keys  that 
could  be  carried  in  the  waistcoat  pocket.  Am- 
bition fell  from  heights,  and  lay  with  its  eye 
on  a  certificate.  By  night  was  a  rush  of  ghosts, 
shrieking  for  passes.  Horse-play  fled  before 
the  Differential  Calculus  in  spectacles. 

I  had  Chrystal's  first  year,  and  recall  the 
gloomy  student  sitting  before  me  who  hacked 
"  All  hope  abandon,  ye  who  enter  here  "  into  a 
desk  that  may  have  confined  Carlyle.  It  took 
him  a  session,  and  he  was  digging  his  own- 
grave,  for  he  never  got  through;  but  it  was 
something  to  hold  by,  something  he  felt  sure 
of.    All  else  was  spiders'  webs  in  chalk. 

Chrystal  was  a  fine  hare  for  the  hounds  who 
could  keep  up  with  him.    He  started  off  the 


80  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN 

first  (lay  with  such  a  spurt  that  most  of  us  were 
left  behind  mopping  our  faces,  and  saying, 
"  Here's  a  fellow,"  which  is  what  Mr.  Stevenson 
says  Shakespeare  would  have  remarked  about 
Mr.  George  Meredith.  We  never  saw  him 
again.  The  men  who  were  on  speaking  acquaint- 
ance with  his  symbols  revelled  in  him  as  stu- 
dents love  an  enthusiast  who  is  eager  to  lead 
them  into  a  world  toward  which  they  would 
journey.  He  was  a  rare  guide  for  them.  The 
bulk,  however,  lost  him  in  labyrinths.  They 
could  not  but  admire  their  brilliant  professor; 
but  while  their  friend  the  medallist  and  he  kept 
the  conversation  to  themselves,  they  felt  like 
eavesdro]3pers  hearkening  to  a  pair  of  lovers. 
\  It  is  "beautiful,"  they  cried,  "but  this  is  no 
\  place  for  us;  let  us  away.^      _      -  ■ 

^  '"^ji  good  many  went,  but  their  truancy  stuck 
in  their  throats  like  Ot way's  last  roll.  The 
M.A.  was  before  them.  They  had  fancied  it  in 
their  hands,  but  it  became  shy  as  a  maiden 
from  the  day  they  learned  Chrystal's  heresy 
that  Euclid  is  not  mathematics,  but  only  some 
riders  in  it.     This  snapped  the  cord  that  had 


/• 


4 


PROFESSOR  CHRYSTAL.  81 

tied  the  blind  man  to  his  dog,  and  the  M.A. 
shot  down  the  horizon.  When  Rutherford 
delivered  his  first  lecture  in  the  chair  of  insti- 
tutes of  medicine,  boisterous  students  drowned 
his  voice,  and  he  flung  out  of  the  room.  At 
the  door  he  paused  to  say,  "Grentleman,  we 
shall  meet  again  at  PhilijDpi."  A  dire  bomb 
was  this  in  the  midst  of  them,  warranted  to  go 
off,  none  able  to  cast  it  overboard.  AVe  too  had 
our  Philippi  before  us.  Chrystal  could  not  be 
left  to  his  own  devices. 

y  I  had  never  a  passion  for  knowing  that  when 
circles  or  triangles  attempt  impossibilities  it  is 
absurd ;  and  x  was  an  unknown  quantity  I  was 
ever  content  to  walk  round  about.  To  admit 
to  Chrystal  that  we  understood  ^  was  only  a 
way  he  had  of  leading  you  on  to  y  and  z.  I 
gave  him  his  chance,  however,  by  contributing 
a  paper  of  answers  to  his  first  weekly  set  of 
exercises.  When  the  hour  for  returning  the 
slips  came  round,  I  was  there  to  accept  fame — 
if  so  it  was  to  be— with  modesty;  and  if  it  was 
to  be  humiliation,  still  to  smile.    The  professor 

said  there  was  one  paper,  with  an  owner's  name 
6 


83  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

on  it,  whicli  he  could  not  read,  and  it  was  handed 
along  the  class  to  be  deciphered.  My  presenti- 
ment that  it  was  mine  became  a  certainty  when 
it  reached  my  hand ;  but  I  passed  it  on  pleas- 
antly, and  it  returned  to  Chrystal,  a  Japhet 
that  never  found  its  father.  Feeling  that  the 
powers  were  against  me,  I  then  retired  from  the 
\  conflict,  sanguine  that  the  teaching  of  my  math- 
ematical schoolmaster,  the  best  that  could  be, 
would  pull  me  through.  The  Disowned  may 
be  going  the  round  of  the  class-room  still. 

The  men  who  did  not  know  when  they  were 
beaten  returned  to  their  seats,  and  doggedly 
took  notes,  their  faces  lengthening  daily.  Their 
note-books  reproduced  exactly  the  hieroglyph- 
ics of  the  blackboard,  and,  examined  at 
night,  were  as  suggestive  as  the  photographs  of 
persons  one  has  never  seen.  To  overtake  Chrys- 
tal after  giving  him  a  start  was  the  presump- 
tion that  is  an  offshoot  from  despair.  There 
was  once  an  elderly  gentleman  who  for  years 
read  the  Times  every  day  from  the  first  page 
to  the  last.  For  a  fortnight  he  was  ill  of  a 
fever;  but,  on  recovering,  he  began  at  the  copy 


PROFESSOR  CHRYSTAL.  83 

of  the  Times  where  he  had  left  off.  He  strug- 
gled magnificently  to  make  up  on  the  Times, 
but  it  was  in  vain.  This  is  an  allegory  for  the 
Avay  these  students  panted  after  Chrystal. 

Some  succumbed  and  joined  the  majority — 
literally;  for  to  mathematics  they  were  dead. 
I  never  hear  of  the  old  university  now,  nor 
pass  under  the  shadow  of  the  walls  one  loves 
when  he  is  done  with  them,  without  seeing  my- 
self as  I  was  the  day  I  matriculated,  an  awe- 
struck boy,  passing  and  repassing  the  gates, 
frightened  to  venture  inside,  breathing  heavily 
at  sight  of  janitors,  Scott  and  Carlyle  in  the  air. 
After  that  I  see  nothing  fuller  of  color  than 
the  meetings  that  were  held  outside  Chrystal's 
door.  Adjoining  it  is  a  class-room  so  little 
sought  for  that  legend  tells  of  its  door  once 
showing  the  notice,  "There  will  be  no  class 
to-day,  as  the  student  is  unwell."  Tlie  crowd 
round  Chrystal's  could  have  filled  that  room. 
i  It  was  composed  of  students  hearkening  at  the 
door  to  see  whether  he  was  to  call  their  part  of 
the  roll  to-day.    If  he  did,  they  slunk  in;  if 


84  AN  EDINBUROH  ELEVEN. 

not,  tlie  crowd  melted  into  tlie  streets,  this  re- 
frain in  their  ears : 

"I'm  plucked,  I  do  admit; 

I'm  spun,  my  mother  dear  : 
Yet  do  not  grieve  for  that 

Which  happens  every  year. 
I've  waited  very  patiently, 

I  may  have  long  to  wait; 
But  you've  another  son,  mother, 

And  he  will  graduate." 

A  professor  of  mathematics  once  brought  a 
rowdy  student  from  the  back  benches  to  a  seat 
beside  him,  because :  "  First,  you'll  be  near  the 
board;  second,  you'll  be  near  me;  and,  third, 
you'll  be  near  the  door."  Chrystal  soon  dis- 
covered that  students  could  be  too  near  the 
door,  and  he  took  to  calling  the  roll  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  hour,  which  insured  an  increased 
attendance.  It  was  a  silent  class,  nothing 
heard  but  the  patter  of  pencils,  rats  scraping 
for  grain,  of  which  there  was  abundance,  but 
not  one  digestion  in  a  bench.  To  smuggle  in  a 
novel  up  one's  waistcoat  was  perilous,  Chrys- 
tal's  spectacles  doing  their  work.  At  a  corner 
of  the  platform  sat  the  assistant,  with  a  con- 
stable's authority,  but,  not  formed  for  swooping, 


PROFESSOR  CHRYJSTAL.  85 

uneasy  because  he  had  legs,  and  where  to  put 
them  he  knew  not.  He  got  through  the  hour 
by  shifting  his  position  every  five  minutes ;  and, 
sitting  there  waiting,  he  reminded  one  of  the 
boy  who,  on  being  told  to  remain  so  quietly 
where  he  was  that  he  could  hear  a  pin  drop, 
held  his  breath  a  moment,  then  shouted,  "  Let 
it  drop !  "  An  excellent  fellow  was  this  assist- 
ant, who  told  us  that  one  of  his  predecessors 
had  got  three  months. 

A  jest  went  as  far  in  that  class  as  a  plum  in 
the  midshipmen's  pudding,  and,  you  remem- 
ber, when  the  middies  came  on  a  plum  they 
gave  three  cheers.  In  the  middle  of  some  bril- 
liant reasoning,  Chrystal  would  stop  to  add  4, 7, 
and  11.  Addition  of  this  kind  was  the  only 
thing  he  could  not  do,  and  he  looked  to  the 
class  for  help—"  20,"  they  shouted,  "  24,"  "  17," 
while  he  thought  it  over.  These  appeals  to 
their  intelligence  made  them  beam.  They 
woke  up  as  a  sleepy  congregation  shakes  itself 
into  life  when  the  minister  says,  "  I  remember 
when  I  was  a  little  boy " 

The  daring  spirits  — say,   those  who   were 


86  AN'  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

going  into  their  father's  office,  and  so  did  not 
look  upon  Chrystal  as  a  door  locked  to  their 
advancement — sought  to  bring  sunshine  into 
the  room.  Chrystal  soon  had  the  blind  down 
on  that.  I  hear  they  have  been  at  it  recently, 
with  the  usual  result.  To  relieve  the  monotony, 
a  student  at  the  end  of  bench  ten  dropped  a  mar- 
ble, which  toppled  slowly  downward  toward  the 
professor.  At  every  step  it  took,  there  was  a 
smothered  guffaw;  but  Chrystal,  who  was  work- 
ing at  the  board,  did  not  turn  his  head.  When 
the  marble  reached  the  floor,  he  said,  still  with 
his  back  to  the  class,  "  Will  the  student  at  the 
end  of  bench  ten,  who  dropped  that  marble, 
stand  up? "  All  eyes  dilated.  He  had  counted 
the  falls  of  the  marble  from  step  to  step.  Mathe- 
matics do  not  obscure  the  intellect. 

Twenty  per  cent  was  a  good  percentage  in 
Chrystal's  examinations ;  thirty  sent  you  away 
whistling.  As  the  M.A.  drew  nigh,  students 
on  their  prospects  might  have  been  farmers  dis- 
cussing the  weather.  Some  put  their  faith  in 
the  professor's  goodness  of  heart,  of  which  symp- 
toms had  been  showing.    He  would  not,  all  at 


PROFESSOR  CHRYSTAL,  87 

once,  "  raise  the  standard  "—hated  phrase  until 
you  are  through,  when  you  write  to  the  papers 
advocating  it.  Courage  1  was  it  not  told  of  the 
Glasgow  Snell  competition  that  one  of  the 
competitors,  as  soon  as  he  saw  the  first  paper, 
looked  for  his  hat  and  the  door;  that  he  was 
forbidden  to  withdraw  until  an  hour  had 
elapsed,  and  that  he  then  tackled  the  i)aper 
and  ultimately  carried  off  the  Snell?  Of  more 
immediate  interest,  perhaps,  was  the  story  of 
the  quaking  student,  whose  neighbor  handed 
him  in  pencil,  beneath  the  desk,  the  answer  to 
several  questions.  It  was  in  an  M.A.  exam., 
and  the  affrighted  student  found  that  he  could 
not  read  his  neighbor's  notes.  Trusting  to  for- 
tune, he  inclosed  them  with  his  own  answers, 
writing  at  the  top,  "  No  time  to  write  these  out 
in  ink,  so  inclose  them  in  pencil."  He  got 
through :  no  moral. 

A  condemned  criminal  wondering  if  he  is  to 
get  a  reprieve  will  not  feel  the  position  novel 
if  he  has  loitered  in  a  university  quadrangle 
waiting  for  the  janitor  to  nail  up  the  results  of 
a  degree  exam.    A  queer  gathering  we  were, 


'S8  AJY  EDINBURGH  ELEVEIT. 

awaiting  the  verdict  of  ChrystaL  Some  com- 
pressed their  lips,  others  were  lively  as  fire- 
works dipped  in  water;  there  were  those  who 
rushed  round  and  round  the  quadrangle;  only 
one  went  the  length  of  saying  that  he  did  not 
want  to  pass.  H.  I  shall  call  him.  I  met  him 
the  other  day  in  Fleet  Street,  and  he  annoyed 
me  by  asking  at  once  if  I  remembered  the  land- 
lady I  quarrelled  with  because  she  wore  my 
socks  to  church  of  a  Sunday :  we  found  her  out 
one  wet  forenoon.  H.  waited  the  issue  with  a 
cigar  in  his  mouth.  He  had  purposely,  he  ex- 
plained, given  in  a  bad  paper.  He  could  not 
understand  why  men  were  so  anxious  to  get 
through.  He  had  ten  reasons  for  wishing  to 
be  plucked.  We  let  him  talk.  The  janitor 
appeare*  >s^ith  the  fateful  paper,  and  we  lashed 
about  him  like  waves  round  a  lighthouse,  all 
but  H.,  who  strolled  languidly  to  the  board 
to  which  the  paper  was  being  fastened.  A 
moment  afterward  I  heard  a  shriek:  "I'm 
through !  I'm  through !  "  It  was  H.  His  cigar 
was  dashed  aside,  and  he  sped  like  an  arrow 


prof:essoe  CHRYSTAL.  89 

from  the  bow  to  the  nearest  telegraph  office, 
shouting  "  I  'ni  through !  "  as  he  ran. 

Those  of  us  who  had  H.'s  fortune  now  con- 
sider Chrystal  made  to  order  for  his  chair,  but 
he  has  never,  perhaps,  had  a  proper  apprecia- 
tion of  the  charming  fellows  who  get  ten  per 
cent. 


PROFESSOR  SELLAR. 


YIIL 

PROFESSOR  SELLAR. 

When  oiie  of  the  distinguished  hunting 
ladies  who  chase  celebrities  captured  Mr.  Mark 
Pattison,  he  gave  anxious  consideration  to  the 
quotation  which  he  was  asked  to  write  above 
his  name.  "  Fancy,"  he  said  with  a  shudder, 
"  going  down  to  posterity  arm  in  arm  with  carpe 
diem!^^  Remembering  this,  I  forbear  tying 
Sellar  to  odi  profanum  vulgus.  Yet  the  name 
opens  the  door  to  the  quotation.  Sellar  is  a 
Roman  senator.  He  stood  very  high  at  Oxford, 
and  took  a  prize  for  boxing.  If  you  watch  him 
in  the  class,  you  will  sometimes  see  his  mind 
murmuring  that  Edinburgh  students  do  not 
take  their  play  like  Oxford  men.  The  differ- 
ence is  in  manner.  A  courteous  fellow-stu- 
ent  of  Sellar  once  showed  his  relatives  over 
Balliol.  "  You  have  now,  I  think,"  he  said  at 
last,  "seen  everything  of  interest  except  the 


94  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

master."  He  flung  a  stone  at  a  window,  at 
which  the  master's  head  appeared  immediately, 
menacing,  wrathful.  "And  now,"  concluded 
the  polite  youth,  "  you  have  seen  him  also." 

Mr.  James  Payn,  who  never  forgave  the  Scot- 
tish people  for  pulling  down  their  blinds  on 
Sundays,  was  annoyed  by  the  halo  they  have 
woven  around  the  name  "  professor."  He  knew 
an  Edinburgh  lady  who  was  scandalized  be- 
cause that  mere  poet,  Alexander  Smith,  coolly 
addressed  professors  by  their  surnames.  Mr. 
Payn  might  have  known  what  it  is  to  walk  in 
the  shadow  of  a  Senatus  Academicus  could  he 
have  met  such  specimens  as  Sellar,  Fraser, 
Tait,  and  Sir  Alexander  Grant  marching  down 
the  Bridges  abreast.  I  have  seen  them:  an  in- 
spiriting sight.  The  pavement  only  held  three. 
You  could  have  shaken  hands  with  them  from 
an  upper  window. 

Sellar's  treatment  of  his  students  was  always 
that  of  a  fine  gentleman.  Few  got  near  him ; 
all  respected  him.  At  times  he  was  addressed 
in  an  unknown  tongue,  but  he  kept  his  counte- 
nance.   He  was  particular  about  students  keep- 


PROFJSSSOR  SELLAR.  95 

ing  to  their  proper  benches,  and  once  thought 
he  had  caught  a  swarthy  north  countryman 
straying.  ''  You  are  in  your  wrong  seat,  Mr. 
Orr."  "  Na,  am  richt  eneuch."  "  You  should 
be  in  the  seat  in  front.  That  is  bench  12,  and 
you  are  entered  on  bench  10."  "Eh'^  This  is 
no  bench  twal,  [counting]  twa,  fower,  sax,  aucht, 
ten."  "  There  is  something  wrong."  "  Oh-h-h, 
[with  sudden  enlightenment]  yeVe  been  coont- 
in'  the  first  dask;  we  dinna  coont  the  first 
dask."  The  professor  knew  the  men  he  had  to 
deal  with  too  well  to  scorn  this  one,  who  turned 
out  to  be  a  fine  fellow.  He  was  the  only  man 
I  ever  knew  who  ran  his  medical  and  arts  classes 
together,  and  so  many  lectures  had  he  to  attend 
daily  that  he  mixed  them  up.  He  graduated, 
however,  in  both  faculties  in  five  years,  and  the 
last  I  heard  of  him  was  that,  when  applying 
for  a  medical  assistantship,  he  sent  his  father's 
photograph  because  he  did  not  have  one  of  him- 
self. He  was  a  man  of  brains  as  well  as  sinew, 
and  dined  briskly  on  a  shilling  a  week. 

There  was  a  little  fellow  in  the  class  who  Avas 
a  puzzle  to  Sellar,  because  he  was  higher  sitting 


96  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

than  standing:  when  the  professor  asked  him 
to  stand  up,  he  stood  down.  "  Is  Mr.  Blank 
not  present? "  Sellar  would  ask.  "  Here,  sir," 
cried  Blank.  "  Then,  will  you  stand  up,  Mr. 
Blank?"  (Agony  of  Blank,  and  a  demon- 
stration  of  many  feet.)  "Are  you  not  pre- 
pared, Mr.  Blank?  "     "  Yes,  sir.     Pastor  quum 

traharet "    "  I  insist  on  your  standing  up, 

Mr.  Blank."  Several  students  rise  to  their  feet 
to  explain,  but  subside.  "  Yes,  sir.  Pastor  quum 

traharet  per "     "I  shall  mark  you  'Not 

prepared,'  Mr.  Blank."  (Further  demonstra- 
tion, and  then  an  indignant  squeak  from  Blank.) 
"  If  you  please,  sir,  I  am  standing."  "  But,  in 
that  case,  how  is  it  ?  Ah,  oh,  ah,  yes ;  pro- 
ceed, Mr.  Blank."  As  one  man  was  only  called 
upon  for  exhibition  live  or  six  times  in  a  year, 
the  professor  had  always  forgotten  the  circum- 
stances when  he  asked  Blank  to  stand  up  again. 
Blank  was  looked  upon  by  his  fellow-students 
as  a  practical  jest,  and  his  name  was  always 
received  with  the  prolonged  applause  which 
greets  the  end  of  an  after-dinner  speech. 

Sellar  never  showed  resentment  to  the  stu- 


PROFESSOR  CELLAR.  97 

dents  who  addressed  him  as  Professor  Sel- 
lars. 

One  day  the  professor  was  giving  out  some 
English  to  be  translated  into  Latin  prose.  He 
read  on — "  and  fiercely  lifting  the  axe  with  both 

hands "  when  a  cheer  from  the  top  bench 

made  him  pause.  The  cheer  spread  over  the 
room  like  an  uncorked  gas.     Sellar  frowned,  but 

proceeded — "  lifting  the  axe "  when  again 

the  class  became  demented.  "  What  does  this 
mean?"  he  demanded,  looking  as  if  he,  too, 
could  lift  the  axe.  "  Axe !  "  shouted  a  student 
in  explanation.  Still  Sellar  could  not  solve  the 
riddle.  Another  student  rose  to  his  assistance. 
"  Axe— Gladstone !  "  he  cried.  Sellar  sat  back 
in  his  chair.  "Really,  gentlem.en,"  he  said, 
"  I  take  the  most  elaborate  precautions  against 
touching  upon  politics  in  this  class,  but  some- 
times you  are  beyond  me.  Let  us  continue — 
'and  fiercely  lifting  his  weapon  with  both 
hands ' " 

The  duxes  from  the  schools  suffered  a  little 

during  their  first  year,  from  a  feeling  that  they 

and  Sellar  understood  each  other.    He  liked 
7 


98  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN, 

to  undeceive  them.  We  had  one,  all  head,  who 
went  about  wondering  at  himself.  He  lost  his 
bursary  on  the  way  home  with  it,  and  still  he 
strutted.  Sellar  asked  if  we  saw  anything  pecu- 
liar in  a  certain  line  from  Horace.  We  did  not. 
We  were  accustomed  to  trust  to  Horace's  repu- 
tation, all  but  the  dandy.  "Eh — ah!  pro- 
fessor," he  lisped ;  "  it  ought  to  have  been  so 
and  so."  Sellar  looked  at  this  promising  plant 
from  the  schools,  and  watered  him  without  a 
rose  on  the  pan.  "  Depend  upon  it,  Mr. — ah, 
I  did  not  catch  your  name,  if  it  ought  to  have 
been  so  and  so,  Horace  would  have  made  it  so 
and  so." 

Sellar's  face  was  proof  against  wit.  It  did 
not  relax  till  he  gave  it  liberty.  You  could 
never  tell  from  it  what  was  going  on  inside. 
He  read  without  a  twitch  a  notice  on  his  door: 
"  Found  in  this  class  a  gold-headed  pencil  case ; 
if  not  claimed  within  three  days  will  be  sold  to 
defray  expenses."  He  even  withstood  the  bat- 
tering-ram on  the  day  of  the  publication  of  his 
"  Augustan  Poets."  The  students  could  not  let 
this  opportunity  pass.    They  assailed  him  with 


PROFESSOR  SELLAR.  99 

frantic  applause ;  every  bench  was  a  drum  to 
thump  upon.  His  countenance  said  nothing. 
The  drums  had  it  in  the  end,  though,  and  he 
dismissed  the  class  with  what  is  believed  to 
have  verged  on  a  smile.  Like  the  lover  who 
has  got  his  lady's  glance,  they  at  once  tried  for 
more,  but  no. 

Most  of  us  had  Humanity  our  first  year, 
which  is  the  year  for  experimenting.  Then  is 
the  time  to  join  the  university  library.  The 
pound,  which  makes  you  a  member,  has  never 
had  its  poet.  You  can  withdraw  your  pound 
when  you  please.  There  are  far-seeing  men 
who  work  the  whole  thing  out  by  mathematics. 
Put  simply,  this  is  the  notion.  In  the  begin- 
ning of  the  session  you  join  the  library,  and 
soon  you  forget  about  your  pound;  you  reckon 
without  it.  As  the  winter  closes  in,  and  the 
coal-bunk  empties ;  or  you  find  that  five  shil- 
lings a  week  for  lodgings  is  a  dream  that  can- 
not be  kept  up;  or  your  coat  assumes  more  and 
more  the  color  identified  with  spring;  or  you 
would  feast  your  friends  for  once  right  glo- 
riously; or  next  Wednesday  is  your  little  sis- 


100  AJS'  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

ter's  birthday;  yon  cower,  despairing,  over  a 
sulky  fire.  Suddenly  you  are  on  your  feet,  all 
aglow  once  more.  What  is  this  thought  that 
sends  the  blood  to  your  head?  That  library 
pound!  You  had  forgotten  that  you  had  a 
bank.  Next  morning  you  are  at  the  university 
in  time  to  help  the  library  door  to  open.  You 
ask  for  your  pound;  you  get  ifc.  Your  hand 
mounts  guard  over  the  pocket  in  which  it  rus- 
tles. So  they  say.  I  took  their  advice  and 
paid  in  my  money ;  then  waited  exultingly  to 
forget  about  it.  In  vain.  I  always  allowed 
for  that  pound,  in  my  thoughts.  I  saw  it  as 
plainly,  I  knew  its  every  feature  as  a  school- 
boy remembers  his  first  trout.  Not  to  be  hasty, 
I  gave  my  pound  two  months,  and  then  brought 
it  home  again.  I  had  a  fellow-student  who 
lived  across  the  way  from  me.  We  railed  at 
the  library -pound  theory  at  open  windows  over 
the  life  of  the  street;  a  beautiful  dream,  but 
mad,  mad. 

He  was  an  enthusiast,  and  therefore  happy, 
whom  I  have  seen  in  the  Humanity  class-room 
on  an  examination  day,  his  pen  racing  with 


PROFESSOR  SELLAR.  101 

time,  himself  seated  in  the  contents  of  an  ink 
bottle.  Some  stories  of  exams,  have  even  a 
blacker  ending.  I  write  in  tears  of  him  who, 
estimating  his  memory  as  a  leaky  vessel,  did 
with  care  and  forethought  draw  up  a  crib  that 
was  more  condensed  than  a  pocket  cyclopaedia, 
a  very  Liebig's  essence  of  the  classics,  tinned 
meat  for  students  in  the  eleventh  hour.  Bride- 
grooms have  been  known  to  forget  the  ring; 
this  student  forgot  his  crib.  In  the  middle  of 
the  examination  came  a  nervous  knocking  at 
the  door.  A  lady  wanted  to  see  the  professor 
at  once.  The  student  looked  up,  to  see  his 
mother  handing  the  professor  his  crib.  Her 
son  had  forgotten  it;  she  was  sure  that  it  was 
important,  so  she  had  brought  it  herself. 

Jump  the  body  of  this  poor  victim.  There 
was  no  M.A.  for  him  that  year;  but  in  our 
gowns  and  sashes  we  could  not  mourn  for  a 
might-have-been.  Soldiers  talk  of  the  Victoria 
cross,  statesmen  of  the  Cabinet,  ladies  of  a  pearl 
set  in  diamonds.  These  are  pretty  baubles, 
but  who  has  thrilled  as  the  student  that  with 
bumping    heart  strolls    into   Middlemass'    to 


102  AN  EDINBURQU  ELEVEN. 

order  his  graduate's  gown  ?  He  hires  it— five 
shillings — but  the  photograph  to  follow  makes 
it  as  good  as  his  for  life.  Look  at  him,  young 
ladies,  as  he  struts  to  the  Synod  Hall  to  have 
M.A.  tacked  to  his  name.  Dogs  do  not  dare 
bark  at  him.  His  gait  is  springy ;  in  Princes 
Street  he  is  as  one  who  walks  upstairs.  Gone 
to  me  are  those  student  days  forever,  but  I  can 
still  put  a  photograph  before  me  of  a  ghost  in 
gown  and  cape,  the  hair  straggling  under  the 
cap  as  tobacco  may  straggle  over  the  side  of  a 
tin  when  there  is  difficulty  in  squeezing  down 
the  lid.  How  well  the  little  black  jacket  looks, 
how  vividly  the  wearer  remembers  putting  it 
on.  He  should  have  worn  a  dress-coat,  but  he 
had  none.  The  little  jacket  resembled  one  with 
the  tails  off,  and,  as  he  artfully  donned  his 
gown,  he  backed  against  the  wall  so  that  no 
one  might  know. 

To  turn  up  the  light  on  old  college  days  is 
not  always  the  signal  for  the  dance.  You  are 
back  in  the  dusty  little  lodging,  with  its  bat 
tered  sofa,  its  slippery  tablecloth,  the  prim 
array  of  books,  the  picture  of  the  death  of 


PROFESSOR  SELLAR.  103 

Nelson,  the  peeling  walls,  the  broken  clock; 
you  are  again  in  the  quadrangle  with  him  who 
has  been  dead  this  many  a  year.  There  are 
tragedies  in  a  college  course.  Dr.  Walter  Smith 
has  told  in  a  poem  mentioned  elsewhere  of  the 
brilliant  scholar  who  forgot  his  dominie; 
some,  alas!  forget  their  mother.  There  are 
men — I  know  it — who  go  mad  from  loneliness; 
and  medallists  ere  now  have  crept  home  to 
die.  The  capping-day  was  the  end  of  our  spring- 
tide, and  for  some  of  us  the  summer  was  to  be 
brief.  Sir  Alexander,  gone  into  the  night  since 
then,  flung  "  I  mekemae  "  at  us  as  we  trooped 
past  him,  all  in  bud,  some  small  flower  to  blos- 
som in  time,  let  us  hope,  here  and  there. 


MR.  JOSEPH  THOMSON, 


IX. 

MR.  JOSEPH  THOMSON. 

Two  years  hence  Joseph  Thomson's  reputa- 
tion will  be  a  decade  old,  though  he  is  at  pres- 
ent only  thirty  years  of  age.  When  you  meet 
him  for  the  first  time  you  conclude  that  he 
must  be  the  explorer's  son.  His  identity,  how- 
ever, can  always  be  proved  by  simply  mention- 
ing Africa  in  his  presence.  Then  he  draws 
himself  up,  and  his  eyes  glisten,  and  he  is 
thinking  how  glorious  it  would  be  to  be  in  the 
Masai  country  again,  living  on  meat  so  diseased 
that  it  crumbled  in  the  hand  like  short-bread. 

Gatelaw  bridge  Quarry,  in  Dumfriesshire,  is 
famous  for  Old  Mortality  and  Thomson,  the 
latter  (when  he  is  at  the  head  of  a  caravan) 
being  as  hardheaded  as  if  he  had  been  cut  out 
of  it.  He  went  to  school  at  Thornhill,  where  he 
spent  great  part  of  his  time  in  reading  novels, 
and  then  he  matriculated  at  Edinburgh  Univer- 


108  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

sity,  wliere  he  began  to  accumulate  medals. 
Geology  and  kindred  studies  were  his  favorites 
there.  One  day  he  heard  that  Keith  Johnston, 
then  on  the  point  of  starting  for  Africa,  wanted 
a  lieutenant.  Thomson  was  at  that  time  equal- 
ly in  need  of  a  Keith  Johnston,  and  every- 
body who  knew  him  saw  that  the  opening  and 
he  were  made  for  each  other.  Keith  Johnston 
and  Thomson  went  out  together,  and  Johnston 
died  in  the  jungle.  This  made  a  man  in  an 
hour  of  a  stripling.  Most  youths  in  Thomson's 
position  at  that  turning-point  of  his  career 
would  have  thought  it  judicious  to  turn  back, 
and  in  geographical  circles  it  would  have  been 
considered  highly  creditable  had  he  brought 
his  caravan  to  the  coast  intact.  Thomson,  how- 
ever, pushed  on,  and  did  everything  that  his 
dead  leader  had  hoped  to  do.  From  that  time 
his  career  has  been  followed  by  every  one  inter- 
ested in  African  exploration,  and  by  his  coun- 
trymen with  some  pride  in  addition.  When 
an  expedition  was  organized  for  the  relief  of 
Emin  Pacha,  there  was  for  a  time  some  prob- 
ability of  Thomson's  having  the  command. 


MR.  JOSEPH  THOMSON.  109 

He  and  Stanley  differed  as  to  the  routes  that 
should  be  taken,  and  subsequent  events  have 
proved  that  Thomson's  was  the  proper  one. 

Thomson  came  over  from  Paris  at  that  time 
to  consult  with  the  authorities,  and  took  up 
his  residence  in  the  most  overgrown  hotel  in 
London.  His  friends  here  organized  an  expedi- 
tion for  his  relief.  They  wandered  up  and 
down  the  endless  stairs  looking  for  him,  till, 
had  they  not  wanted  to  make  themselves  a 
name,  they  would  have  beaten  a  retreat.  He 
also  wandered  about  looking  for  them,  and  at 
last  they  met.  The  leader  of  the  party,  re- 
straining his  emotion,  lifted  his  hat,  and  said, 
"Mr.  Thomson,  I  presume?"  This  is  how  I 
found  Thomson. 

The  explorer  had  been  for  some  months  in 
.Paris  at  that  time,  and  France  did  him  the 
honor  of  translating  his  "  Through  Masailand  " 
into  French.  In  this  book  there  is  a  picture  of 
a  buffalo  tossing  Thomson  in  the  air.  This 
was  after  he  had  put  several  bullets  into  it,  and 
in  the  sketch  he  is  represented  some  ten  feet 
from  the  ground,  with  his  gun  flying  one  way 


110  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

and  his  cap  another.  "  It  was  just  as  if  I  were 
distributing  largess  to  the  natives,"  the  trav- 
eller says  now,  though  this  idea  does  not  seem 
to  have  struck  him  at  the  time.  He  showed 
the  sketch  to  a  Parisian  lady,  who  looked  at 
it  long  and  earnestly.  "  Ah,  M.  Thomson,"  she 
said  at  length,  "  but  how  could  you  pose  like 
that?" 

like  a  good  many  other  travellers,  including 
Mr.  Du  Chaillu,  who  says  he  is  a  dear  boy, 
Thomson  does  not  smoke.  Stanley,  however, 
smokes  very  strong  cigars,  as  those  who  have 
been  in  his  sumptuous  chambers  in  Bond  Street 
can  testify.  All  the  three  happen  to  be  bache- 
lors, though;  because,  one  of  them  says,  after 
returning  from  years  of  lonely  travel,  a  man 
has  such  a  delight  in  female  society  that  to 
pick  and  choose  would  be  invidious.  Yet  they 
have  had  their  chance.  An  African  race  once 
tried  to  bribe  Mr.  Du- Chaillu  with  a  kingdom 
and  over  eight  hundred  wives — "the  biggest 
offer,"  he  admits,  "  I  ever  had  in  one  day." 

Among  the  lesser  annoyances  to  which  Thom- 
son was  subjected  in  Africa  was  the  presence 


MR.  JOSEPH   THOMSON.  HI 

of  rats  in  the  night-time,  which  he  had  to  brush 
away  like  flies.  Until  he  was  asked  whether 
there  was  not  danger  in  this,  it  never  seems  to 
have  struck  him  that  it  was  more  than  annoy- 
ing. Yet  though  he  and  the  two  other  trav- 
ellers mentioned  (doubtless  they  are  not  alone 
in  this)  have  put  up  cheerfully  with  almost 
every  hardship  known  to  man,  this  does  not 
make  them  indifferent  to  the  comforts  of  civili- 
aztion  when  they  return  home.  Du  Chaillu 
was  looking  very  comfortable  in  a  house-boat 
the  other  day,  where  his  hosts  thought  they 
were  "roughing  it" — with  a  male  attendant; 
and  in  Stanley's  easy-chairs  you  sink  to  dream. 
The  last  time  I  saw  Thomson  in  his  rooms  in 
London  he  was  on  his  knees,  gazing  in  silent 
rapture  at  a  china  saucer  with  a  valuable  crack 
in  it. 

If  you  ask  Thomson  what  was  the  most  dan- 
gerous expedition  he  ever  embarked  on,  he  will 
probably  reply, "  Crossing  Piccadilly."  The  fin- 
est thing  that  can  be  said  of  him  is  that  during 
these  four  expeditions  he  never  once  fired  a 
shot  at  a  native.    Other  explorers  have  had  to 


113  Alf  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

do  SO  to  save  their  lives.  There  were  often 
occasions  when  Thomson  could  have  done  it,  <\ 
to  save  his  life  to  all  appearance,  too.  The 
result  of  his  method  of  progressing  is  that 
where  he  has  gone— and  he  has  been  in  parts 
of  Africa  never  before  trod  by  the  white  man 
— he  really  has  "  opened  up  the  country  "  for 
those  who  care  to  follow  him.  Civilization  by 
bullet  has  only  closed  it  elsewhere.  Yet  though 
there  is  an  abundance  of  Scotch  caution  about 
him,  he  is  naturally  an  impulsive  man,  more 
inclined  personally  to  march  straight  on  than 
to  reach  his  destination  by  a  safer  if  more  cir- 
cuitous route.  AVhere  only  his  own  life  is  con- 
cerned, he  gives  you  the  impression  of  one  who 
might  be  rash ;  but  his  prudence  at  the  head  of 
a  caravan  is  at  the  bottom  of  the  faith  that  is 
placed  in  him.  According  to  a  story  that  got 
into  the  papers  years  ago,  M.  de  Brazza  once 
quarrelled  with  Thomson  in  Africa,  and  all  but 
struck  him.  Thomson  was  praised  for  keeping 
his  temper.  The  story  was  a  fabrication,  but 
I  fear  that  if  M.  de  Brazza  had  behaved  like 
this,  Thomson  would  not  have  remembered  to 


MR.  JOSEPH  THOMSON.  113 

be  diplomatic  till  some  time  afterward.  A 
truer  tale  might  be  told  of  an  umbrella,  gor- 
geous and  wonderful  to  behold,  that  Be  Brazza 
took  to  Africa  to  impress  the  natives  with,  and 
which  Thomson  subsequently  presented  to  a 
dusky  monarch. 

The  explorer  has  never  shot  a  lion,  though 
he  has  tracked  a  good  many  of  them.  Once  he 
thought  he  had  one.  It  was  reclining  in  a  lit- 
tle grove,  and  Thomson  felt  that  it  was  his  at 
last.  With  a  trusty  native  he  crept  forward 
till  he  could  obtain  a  good  shot,  and  then  fired. 
In  breathless  suspense  he  waited  for  its  spring, 
and  then  when  it  did  not  spring  he  saw  that  he 
had  shot  it  through  the  heart.  However,  it 
turned  out  only  to  be  a  large  stone. 

The  young  Scotchman  sometimes  thinks  of 

the  tremendous  effect  it  would  have  had  on  the 

natives  had  he  been  the  possessor  of  a  complete 

set  of  artificial  teeth.    This  is  because  he  has 

one  artificial  tooth.     Happening  to  take  it  out 

one  day,  an  awe  filled  all  who  saw  him,  and 

from  that  hour  he  was  esteemed  a  medicine 

man.    Another  excellent  way  of  impressing 
8 


114  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

Africa  with  the  grandeur  of  Britain  was  to  take 
a  photograph.  When  the  natives  saw  the 
camera  aimed  at  them,  they  fell  to  the  ground 
vanquished. 

When  Thomson  was  recently  in  this  country, 
he  occasionally  took  a  walk  of  twenty  or  thirty 
miles  to  give  him  an  appetite  for  dinner.  This 
he  calls  a  stroll.  One  day  he  strolled  from 
Thomhill  to  Edinburgh,  had  dinner,  and  then 
went  to  the  Exhibition.  In  appearance  he  is 
tall  and  strongly  knit  rather  than  heavily  built, 
and  if  you  see  him  more  than  once  in  the  same 
week  you  discover  that  he  has  still  an  interest 
in  neck -ties.  Perhaps  his  most  remarkable 
feat  consisted  in  taking  a  bottle  of  brandy  into 
the  heart  of  Africa,  and  bringing  it  back 
intact. 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON, 

I 


i 


ROBERT  LOmS  STEVENSON. 

Some  men  of  letters,  not  necessarily  the  great- 
est, have  an  indescribable  charm  to  which  we 
give  our  hearts.  Thackeray  is  the  young  man's 
first  love.  Of  living  authors,  none  perhaps  be- 
witches the  reader  more  than  Mr.  Stevenson, 
who  plays  ux)on  words  as  if  they  were  a  musi- 
cal instrument.  To  follow  the  music  is  less 
difficult  than  to  place  the  musician.  A  friend 
of  mine,  who,  like  Mr.  Grant  Allen,  reviews  365 
books  a  year,  and  866  in  leap  years,  recently 
arranged  the  novelists  of  to-day  in  order  of 
merit.  Meredith,  of  course,  he  wrote  first,  and 
then  there  was  a  fall  to  Hardy.  "  Haggard,"  he 
explained,  "I  dropped  from  the  Eiffel  Tower; 
but  what  can  I  do  with  Stevenson?  I  can't 
put  him  before  '  Lorna  Doone.' "  So  Mr.  Ste- 
venson puzzles  the  critics,  fascinating  them  until 
they  are  willing  to  judge  him  by  the  great 


118  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

work  he  is  to  write  by  and  by  when  the  little 
books  are  finished.  Over  "Treasure  Island" 
I  let  my  fire  die  in  winter  without  knowing 
that  I  was  freezing.  But  the  creator  of  Alan 
Breck  has  now  published  nearly  twenty  vol- 
umes. It  is  so  much  easier  to  finish  the  little 
works  than  to  begin  the  great  one,  for  which 
we  are  all  taking  notes. 

Mr.  Stevenson  is  not  to  be  labelled  novelist. 
He  wanders  the  byways  of  literature  without 
any  fixed  address.  Too  much  of  a  truant  to  be 
classified  with  the  other  boys,  he  is  only  a 
writer  of  fiction  in  the  sense  that  he  was  once 
an  Edinburgh  University  student  because  now 
and  again  he  looked  in  at  his  classes  when  he 
happened  to  be  that  way.  A  literary  man  with- 
out a  fixed  occupation  amazes  Mr.  Henry  James, 
a  master  in  the  school  of  fiction  which  tells,  in 
three  volumes,  how  Hiram  K.  Wilding  trod  on 
the  skirt  of  Alice  M.  Sparkins  without  any- 
thing's  coming  of  it.  Mr.  James  analyzes  Mr. 
Stevenson  with  immense  cleverness,  but  with- 
out summing  up.  That  "  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr. 
Hyde "  should  be  by  the  author  of  *'  Treasure 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENmN.  119 

Island,"  "  Yirginibus  Puerisque  "  by  the  author 
of  "  The  New  Arabian  Nights,"  "  A  Child's  Gar- 
den of  Yerses  "  by  the  author  of  "  Prince  Otto," 
are  to  him  the  three  degrees  of  comparison  of 
wonder,  though  for  my  own  part  I  marvel  more 
that  the  author  of  '"  Daisy  Miller "  should  be 
Mr.  Stevenson's  eulogist.  One  conceives  Mr. 
James  a  boy  in  velveteens  looking  fearfully  at 
Stevenson  playing  at  pirates. 

There  is  nothing  in  Mr.  Stevenson's  some- 
times writing  essays,  sometimes  romances,  and 
anon  poems  to  mark  him  versatile  beyond  other 
authors.  One  dreads  his  continuing  to  do  so, 
with  so  many  books  at  his  back,  lest  it  means 
weakness  rather  than  strength.  He  experi- 
ments too  long;  he  is  still  a  boy  wondering 
what  he  is  going  to  be.  With  Cowley's  candor 
he  tells  us  that  he  wants  to  write  something  by 
which  he  may  be  forever  known.  His  attempts 
in  this  direction  have  been  in  the  nature  of  try- 
ing different  ways,  and  he  always  starts  off 
whistling.  Having  gone  so  far  without  losing 
himself,  he  turns  back  to  try  another  road. 
Does  his  heart  fail  him,  despite  his  jaunty  bear- 


120  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN, 

ing,  or  is  it  because  there  is  no  liurry  ?  Though 
all  his  books  are  obviously  by  the  same  hand, 
no  living  writer  has  come  so  near  fame  from  so 
many  different  sides.  Where  is  the  man  among 
us  who  could  write  another  "  Yirginibus  Puer- 
isque,"  the  most  delightful  volume  for  the  ham- 
mock ever  sung  in  prose?  The  poems  are  as 
exquisite  as  they  are  artificial.  ''  Jekyll  and 
Hyde  "  is  the  greatest  triumph  extant  in  Christ- 
mas literature  of  the  morbid  kind.  The  don- 
key on  the  Cevennes  (how  Mr.  Stevenson  be- 
labored him !)  only  stands  second  to  the  "  Inland 
Voyage."  "Kidnapped"  is  the  outstanding 
boy's  book  of  its  generation.  "  The  Black  Ar- 
row "  alone,  to  my  thinking,  is  second  class. 
We  shall  all  be  doleful  if  a  marksman  who  can 
pepper  his  target  with  inners  does  not  reach 
the  bull's-eye.  But  it  is  quite  time  the  great 
work  was  begun.  The  sun  sinks  while  the 
climber  walks  round  his  mountain,  looking  for 
the  best  way  up. 

Hard  necessity  has  kept  some  great  writers 
from  doing  their  best  work,  but  Mr.  Stevenson 
is  at  last  so  firmly  established  that  if  he  con- 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON  121 

tinues  to  be  versatile  it  will  only  be  from  clioice. 
He  lias  attained  a  popularity  such  as  is,  as 
a  rule,  only  accorded  to  classic  authors  or  to 
charlatans.  For  this  he  has  America  to  thank 
rather  than  Britain,  for  the  Americans  buy  his 
books,  the  only  honor  a  writer's  admirers  are 
slow  to  pay  him.  Mr.  Stevenson's  reputation 
in  the  United  States  is  creditable  to  that  coun- 
try, which  has  given  him  a  position  here  in 
w^hich  only  a  few  saw  him  when  he  left.  Un- 
fortunately, with  popularity  has  come  publi- 
city. All  day  the  reporters  sit  on  his  garden 
wall. 

No  man  has  written  in  a  finer  spirit  of  the 
profession  of  letters  than  Mr.  Stevenson,  but 
this  gossip  vulgarizes  it.  The  adulation  of  the 
American  public  and  of  a  little  band  of  clever 
literary  dandies  in  London,  great  in  criticism,  of 
whom  he  has  become  the  darling,  has  made  Mr. 
Stevenson  complacent,  and  he  always  tended 
perhaps  to  be  a  thought  too  fond  of  his  velvet 
coat.  There  is  danger  in  the  delight  with 
which  his  every  scrap  is  now  received.  A  few 
years  ago,  when  he  was  his  own  severest  and 


122  AI{  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

sanest  critic,  he  stopped  the  publication  of  a 
book  after  it  was  in  proof —a  brave  act.  He 
has  lost  this  courage,  or  he  would  have  re- 
written "  The  Black  Arrow."  There  is  deteri- 
oration in  the  essays  he  has  been  contributing 
to  an  American  magazine,  graceful  and  sugges- 
tive though  they  are.  The  most  charming  of 
living  stylists,  Mr.  Stevenson  is  self-conscious 
in  all  his  books  now  and  again,  but  hitherto  it 
has  been  the  self -consciousness  of  an  artist  with 
severe  critics  at  his  shoulder.  It  has  become  self 
satisfaction.  The  critics  have  put  a  giant's 
robe  on  him,  and  he  has  not  flung  it  off.  He 
dismisses  "  Tom  Jones  "  with  a  simper.  Person- 
ally Thackeray  "  scarce  appeals  to  us  as  the 
ideal  gentleman;  if  there  were  nothing  else 
[what  else  is  there?],  perpetual  nosing  after 
snobbery  at  least  suggests  the  snob."  From 
Mr.  Stevenson  one  would  not  have  expected  the 
revival  of  this  silly  charge,  which  makes  a  cab- 
bage of  every  man  who  writes  about  cabbages, 
I  shall  say  no  more  of  these  ill-considered 
papers,  though  the  sneers  at  Fielding  call  for 
indignant  remonstrance,  beyond  expressing  a 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON.  123 

hope  that  they  lie  buried  between  magazine 
covers.  Mr.  Stevenson  has  reached  the  critical 
point  in  his  career,  and  one  would  like  to  see 
him  back  at  Bournemouth,  writing  within  high 
walls.  We  want  that  big  book;  we  think  he 
is  capable  of  it,  and  so  we  cannot  afford  to  let 
him  drift  into  the  seaweed.  About  the  writer 
with  whom  his  name  is  so  often  absurdly  linked 
we  feel  differently.  It  is  as  foolish  to  rail  at 
Mr.  Rider  Haggard's  complacency  as  it  would 
be  to  blame  Christopher  Sly  for  so  quickly  be- 
lieving that  he  was  born  a  lord. 

The  key-note  of  all  Mr.  Stevenson's  writings 
is  his  indifference,  so  far  as  his  books  are  con- 
cerned, to  the  affairs  of  life  and  death  on  which 
their  minds  are  chiefly  set.  Whether  man  has 
an  immortal  soul  interests  him  as  an  artist  not 
a  whit:  what  is  to  come  of  man  troubles  him  as 
little  as  where  man  came  from.  He  is  a  warm, 
genial  writer,  yet  this  is  so  strange  as  to  seem 
inhuman.  His  philosophy  is  that  we  are  but 
as  the  light-hearted  birds.  This  is  our  moment 
of  being ;  let  us  play  the  intoxicating  game  of 
life  beautifully,  artistically,  before  we  fall  dead 


124  AN  EDINBURQH  ELEVEN. 

from  the  tree.  We  all  know  it  is  only  in  his 
books  that  Mr.  Stevenson  can  live  this  life. 
The  cry  is  to  arms;  spears  glisten  in  the  sun; 
see  the  brave  bark  riding  joyously  on  the  waves, 
the  black  flag,  the  dash  of  red  color  twisting 
round  a  mountain-side.  Alas !  the  drummer  lies 
on  a  couch  beating  his  drum.  It  is  a  pathetic 
picture,  less  true  to  fact  now,  one  rejoices  to 
know,  than  it  was  recently.  A  common  theory 
is  that  Mr.  Stevenson  dreams  an  ideal  life  to 
escape  from  his  own  sufferings.  This  sentimen- 
tal plea  suits  very  well.  The  noticeable  thing, 
however,  is  that  the  grotesque,  the  uncanny, 
holds  his  soul;  his  brain  will  only  follow  a 
colored  clew.  The  result  is  that  he  is  chiefly 
picturesque,  and,  to  those  who  want  more  than 
art  for  art's  sake,  never  satisfying.  Fascina- 
ting as  his  verses  are,  artless  in  the  perfection 
of  art,  they  take  no  reader  a  step  forward. 
The  children  of  whom  he  sings  so  sweetly  are 
cherubs  without  souls.  It  is  not  in  poetry  that 
Mr.  Stevenson  will  give  the  great  book  to  the 
world,  nor  will  it,  I  think,  be  in  the  form  of 
essays.    Of  late  he  has  done  nothing  quite  so 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVEWSOI^.  125 

fine  as  "Yirginibus  Puerisque,"  though  most 
of  his  essays  are  gardens  in  which  grow  few 
weeds.  Quaint  in  matter  as  in  treatment,  they 
are  the  best  strictly  literary  essays  of  the  day, 
and  their  mixture  of  tenderness  with  humor 
suggests  Charles  Lamb.  Some  think  Mr.  Ste- 
venson's essays  equal  to  Lamb's,  or  greater.  To 
that  I  say,  no.  The  name  of  Lamb  will  for 
many  a  year  bring  proud  tears  to  English  eyes. 
Here  was  a  man,  weak  like  the  rest  of  us,  who 
kept  his  sorrows  to  himself.  Life  to  him  was 
not  among  the  trees.  He  had  loved  and  lost. 
Grief  laid  a  heavy  hand  on  his  brave  brow. 
Dark  were  his  nights;  horrid  shadows  in  the 
house ;  sudden  terrors ;  the  heart  stops  beating 
waiting  for  a  footstep.  At  that  door  comes 
Tragedy,  knocking  at  all  hours.  AVas  Lamb 
dismayed?  The  tragedy  of  his  life  was  not 
drear  to  him.  It  was  wound  round  those  who 
were  dearest  to  him ;  it  let  him  know  that  life 
has  a  glory  even  at  its  saddest,  that  humor  and 
pathos  clasp  hands,  that  loved  ones  are  drawn 
nearer,  and  the  soul  strengthened  in  the  pres- 
ence of  anguish,  pain,  and  death.    When  Lamb 


X26  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

sat  down  to  write,  he  did  not  pull  down  his 
blind  on  all  that  is  greatest,  it*  most  awful,  in 
human  life.  He  was  gentle,  kindly ;  but  he  did 
not  play  at  pretending  that  there  is  no  ceme- 
tery round  the  corner.  In  Mr.  Stevenson's  ex- 
quisite essays  one  looks  in  vain  for  the  great 
heart  that  palpitates  through  the  pages  of 
Charles  Lamb. 

The  great  work,  if  we  are  not  to  be  disap- 
pointed, will  be  fiction.  Mr.  Stevenson  is  said 
to  feel  this  himself,  and,  as  I  understand, 
^' Harry  Shovel"  will  be  his  biggest  bid  for 
fame.  It  is  to  be,  broadly  speaking,  a  nine- 
teenth-century "  Peregrine  Pickle,"  dashed  with 
Meredith,  and  this  in  the  teeth  of  many  ad- 
mirers who  maintain  that  the  best  of  the  author 
is  Scottish.  Mr.  Stevenson,  however,  knows 
what  he  is  about.  Critics  have  said  enthusias- 
tically— for  it  is  difficult  to  write  of  Mr.  Steven- 
son without  enthusiasm — that  Alan  Breck  is  as 
good  as  anything  in  Scott.  Alan  Breck  is  cer- 
tainly a  masterpiece,  quite  worthy  of  the  great- 
est of  all  story-tellers,  who,  nevertheless,  it 
should  be  remembered,  created  these  rich  side 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON.  127 

characters  by  the  score,  another  before  dinner- 
time. English  critics  have  taken  Alan  to  their 
hearts,  and  appreciate  him  thoroughly;  the 
reason,  no  doubt,  being  that  he  is  the  character 
whom  England  acknowledges  as  the  Scottish 
type.  The  Highlands,  which  are  Scotland  to 
the  same  extent  as  Northumberland  is  England, 
present  such  a  character  to  this  day,  but  no 
deep  knowledge  of  Mr.  Stevenson's  native  coun- 
try was  required  to  reproduce  him.  An  artis- 
tic Englishman  or  American  could  have  done  it. 
Scottish  religion,  I  think,  Mr.  Stevenson  has 
never  understood,  except  as  the  outsider  mis- 
understands it.  He  thinks  it  hard  because 
there  are  no  colored  windows.  "  The  color  of 
Scotland  has  entered  into  him  altogether,"  says 
Mr.  James,  who,  we  gather,  conceives  in  Edin- 
burgh Castle  a  place  where  tartans  glisten  in 
the  sun,  while  rocks  re-echo  bagpipes.  Mr- 
James  is  right  in  a  way.  It  is  the  tartan,  the 
claymore,  the  cry  that  the  heather  is  on  fire, 
that  are  Scotland  to  Mr.  Stevenson.  But  the 
Scotland  of  our  day  is  not  a  country  rich  in 
color;  a  sombre  gray  prevails.     Thus,  though 


128  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

Mr.  Stevenson's  best  romance  is  Scottish,  that 
is  only,  I  think,  because  of  his  extraordinary 
aptitude  for  the  picturesque.  Give  him  any 
period  in  any  country  that  is  romantic,  and  he 
will  soon  steep  himself  in  the  kind  of  knowl- 
edge he  can  best  turn  to  account.  Adventures 
suit  him  best,  the  ladies  being  left  behind ;  and 
so  long  as  he  is  in  fettle  it  matters  little  whether 
the  scene  be  Scotland  or  Spain.  The  great  thing 
is  that  he  should  now  give  to  one  ambitious 
book  the  time  in  which  he  has  hitherto  written 
half  a  dozen  small  ones.  He  will  have  to  take 
existence  a  litle  more  seriously— to  weave  broad- 
cloth instead  of  lace. 


REV.  WALTER  C.  SMITH,  D.D. 


XI. 
REV.  WALTER  C.  SMITH,  D.D. 

During  the  four  winters  another  and  I  were 
in  Edinburgh,  we  never  entered  any  bnt  Free 
churches.  This  seems  to  have  been  less  on  ac- 
count of  *a  scorn  for  other  denominations  than 
because  we  never  thought  of  them.  We  felt 
sorry  for  the  "  men  "  who  knew  no  better  than 
to  claim  to  be  on  the  side  of  Dr.  Macgregor. 
Even  our  Free  kirks  were  limited  to  two,  St. 
George's  and  the  Free  High.  After  all,  we  must 
have  been  liberally  minded  beyond  most  of  our 
fellows,  for,  as  a  rule,  those  who  frequented 
one  of  these  churches  shook  their  heads  at  the 
other.  It  is  said  that  Dr.  Whyte  and  Dr.  Smith 
have  a  great  appreciation  of  each  other.  They, 
too,  are  liberally  minded. 

To  contrast  the  two  leading  Free  Church 
ministers  in  Edinburgh  as  they  struck  a  stu- 
dent would  be  to  become  a  boy  again.    The  one 


132  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN 

is  always  ready  to  go  on  fire,  and  the  other  is 
sometimes  at  hand  with  a  jug  of  cold  water.  Dr. 
Smith  counts  a  hundred  before  he  starts,  while 
the  minister  of  Free  St.  George's  is  off  at  once 
at  a  gallop,  and  would  always  arrive  first  at  his 
destination  if  he  had  not  sometimes  to  turn 
back.  He  is  not  only  a  Gladstonian,  but  Glad- 
stonian ;  his  enthusiasm  carries  him  on  as  steam 
drives  the  engine.  Dr.  Smith  being  a  critic,  with 
a  faculty  of  satire,  what  would  rouse  the  one 
man  makes  the  other  smile.  Dr.  Whyte  judges 
you  as  you  are  at  the  moment;  Dr.  Smith  sees 
what  you  will  be  like  to-morrow.  Some  years 
ago  the  defeated  side  in  a  great  Assembly  fight 
met  at  a  breakfast  to  reason  itself  into  a  belief 
that  it  had  gained  a  remarkable  moral  victory. 
Dr.  Whyte  and  Dr.  Smith  were  both  present, 
and  the  former  was  so  inspiriting  that  the 
breakfast  became  a  scene  of  enthusiasm.  Then 
Dr.  Smith  arose  and  made  a  remark  about  a 
company  of  Mark  Tapleys — after  which  the 
meeting  broke  up. 

I  have  a  curious  reminiscence  of  the  student 
who  most  frequently  accompanied  me  to  church 


REV.   WALTER  C.  SMITH,  D.J).  133 

in  Edinburgh.  One  Sunday  when  we  were 
on  our  way  up  shishy  Bath  Street  to  Free  St. 
George's  he  discovered  that  he  had  not  a  penny 
for  the  plate.  I  suggested  to  him  to  give  two- 
pence next  time ;  but  no,  he  turned  back  to  our 
lodgings  for  the  penny.  Some  time  afterward 
he  found  himself  in  the  same  position  when  we 
were  nearing  the  Free  High.  "I'll  give  two- 
pence next  time,"  he  said  cheerfully.  I  have 
thought  this  over  since  then,  and  wondered  if 
there  was  anything  in  it. 

The  most  glorious  privilege  of  the  old  is  to 
assist  the  young.  The  two  ministers  who  are 
among  the  chief  pillars  of  the  Free  Church  in 
Edinburgh  are  not  old  yet,  but  they  have  had 
a  long  experience,  and  the  strength  and  encour- 
agement they  have  been  to  the  young  is  the 
grand  outstanding  fact  of  their  ministries. 
Their  influence  is,  of  course,  chiefly  noticeable 
in  the  divinity  men,  who  make  their  Bible 
classes  so  remarkable.  There  is  a  sort  of  Free- 
masonry among  the  men  who  have  come  under 
the  influence  of  Dr.  Smith.  It  seems  to  have 
steadied  them — to  have  given  them  wise  rules 


134  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN. 

of  life  that  have  taken  the  noise  out  of  them, 
and  left  them  undemonstrative,  quiet,  deter- 
mined. You  will  have  little  difficulty,  as  a 
rule,  in  picking  out  Dr.  Smith's  men,  whether 
in  the  pulpit  or  in  private.  They  have  his 
mark,  as  the  Rugby  boys  were  marked  by  Dr. 
Arnold.  Even  in  speaking  of  him,  they  seldom 
talk  in  superlatives :  only  a  light  comes  into 
their  eye,  and  you  realize  what  a  well-founded 
reverence  is.  I  met  lately  in  London  an  Irish- 
man who,  when  the  conversation  turned  to  Scot- 
land, asked  what  Edinburgh  was  doing  with- 
out Dr.  Smith  (who  was  in  America  at  the  time). 
He  talked  with  such  obvious  knowledge  of  Dr. 
Smith's  teaching,  and  with  such  aifection  for 
the  man,  that  by  and  by  we  were  surprised  to 
hear  that  he  had  never  heard  him  preach  nor 
read  a  line  of  his  works.  He  explained  that  he 
knew  intimately  two  men  who  looked  upon 
their  Sundays  in  the  Free  High,  and  still  more 
upon  their  private  talks  with  the  minister,  as 
the  turning-point  in  their  lives.  They  were 
such  tine  fellows,  and  they  were  so  sure  that 
they  owed  their  development  to   Dr.  Smith, 


RBV.   WALTER  C.   SMITH,   D.D.  135 

that  to  know  the  followers  was  to  know  some- 
thing of  the  master.  This  it  is  to  be  a  touch- 
stone to  young  men. 

There  are  those  who  think  Dr.  Smith  the 
poet  of  higher  account  than  Dr.  Smith  the 
preacher.  I  do  not  agree  with  them,  though 
there  can  be  no  question  that  the  author  of 
"  Olrig  Grange  "  and  Mr.  Alexander  Anderson 
are  the  two  men  now  in  Edinburgh  who  have 
(at  times)  the  divine  afflatus.  "  Surfaceman  "  is 
a  true  son  of  Burns.  Of  him  it  may  be  said, 
as  it  never  can  be  said  of  Dr.  Smith,  that  he 
sings  because  he  must.  His  thoughts  run  in 
harmonious  numbers.  The  author  of  "Olrig 
Grange  "  is  the  stronger  mind,  however,  and  his 
lines  are  always  pregnant  of  meaning.  He  is 
of  the  school  of  Mr.  Lewis  Morris,  but  an  im- 
measurably higher  intellect  if  not  so  fine  an 
artist:  indeed,  though  there  are  hundreds  of 
his  pages  that  are  not  poetry,  there  are  almost 
none  that  could  not  be  rewritten  into  weighty 
prose.  Sound  is  never  his  sole  object.  Good 
novels  in  verse  are  a  mistake,  for  it  is  quite 
certain  they  would  be  better  in  prose.    The 


136  AN  EDINBURGH  ELEVEN 

novelist  has  a  great  deal  to  say  that  cannot  be 
said  naturally-  in  rhythm,  and  much  of  Dr. 
Smith's  blank  verse  is  good  prose  in  frills.  It 
is  driven  into  an  undeserved  confinement. 

The  privilege  of  critics  is  to  get  twelve  or 
twenty  minor  poets  in  a  row,  and  then  blow  them 
all  over  at  once.  I  remember  one  who  de- 
spatched Dr.  Smith  with  a  verse  from  the  book 
under  treatment.  Dr.  Smith  writes  of  a  poet's 
verses,  "  There  is  no  sacred  fire  in  them,  Nor 
much  of  homely  sense  and  shrewd ;  "  and  when 
the  critic  came  to  these  lines  he  stopped  read- 
ing: he  declared  that  Dr.  Smith  had  passed 
judgment  on  himself.  This  is  a  familiar  form 
of  criticism,  but  in  the  present  case  it  had  at 
least  the  demerit  of  being  false.  There  is  so 
much  sacred  fire  about  Dr.  Smith's  best  poetry 
that  it  is  what  makes  him  a  poet ;  and  as  for 
''homely  sense  and  shrewd,"  he  has  simply 
more  of  it  than  any  contemporary  writer  of 
verse.  It  is  what  gives  heart  to  his  satire,  and 
keeps  him  from  wounding  merely  for  the 
pleasure  of  drawing  blood.  In  conjunction 
with  the  sacred  fire,  the  noble  indignation  that 


REV.   WALTER  C.   SMITH,  D,D.  137 

mean  things  should  be,  the  insight  into  the 
tragic,  it  is  what  makes  "  Hilda, "  his  greatest 
poem.  Without  it  there  could  not  be  pathos, 
which  is  concerned  with  little  things;  nor 
humor,  nor,  indeed,  the  flash  into  men  and 
things  that  makes  such  a  poem  as  "  Dr.  Link- 
letter's  Scholar  "  as  true  as  life,  as  sad  as  death. 
If  only  for  the  sake  of  that  noble  piece  of  writ- 
ing, every  Scottish  student  should  have  "  North- 
Country  Folk  "  in  his  possession.  The  poem  is 
probably  the  most  noteworthy  thing  that  has 
been  said  of  northern  university  life. 


/.. 


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